Charles Dickens portrait lost for 150 years goes on show in London
- The portrait, painted in 1843, went missing in the mid-1800s and was found last year in South Africa
- The painting shows the author as a 30-year-old with long curly hair, in contrast to most others which show him as an old man
A youthful portrait of British writer Charles Dickens that went missing for 150 years will go on display in London this week after being found covered in mould next to a metal lobster at a market in South Africa.
The miniature watercolour and gouache portrait by Margaret Gillies, valued at £220,000 (US$280,000), was painted in 1843 as the young Dickens, in his early 30s, was writing A Christmas Carol.
The painting shows the Victorian writer clean shaven, with long, wavy hair, looking over his left shoulder, a contrast to the more common image of an ageing Dickens, with long bushy beard and messy, balding hair.
The portrait was last seen on public display in 1844 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, only to then disappear some time after, with Gillies writing in a letter in the 1860s that she was unsure of its whereabouts. After a fruitless search, she reported it unaccounted for in 1886.
The five-and-a-half inch (14cm) high oval portrait was found late last year in KwaZulu-Natal by an unknown buyer and has since been restored.