\n<\/p>\n
One theory as to how the lost portrait ended up in Africa is a connection with George Henry Lewes, best known as the lover of writer George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Lewes was already married with children when he met Eliot (and his wife was in a relationship with Thornton Leigh Hunt). In 1865 the Lewes\u2019s eldest son Charles married Gertrude Hill, the adopted daughter of Margaret Gillies and Thomas Southwood Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Charles Lewes\u2019s brothers, Herbert and Thornton, both moved to South Africa, settling in what was then called Natal. Perhaps, one of the brothers took the painting with him? Or perhaps there is some other unknown explanation as to how this small, beautiful portrait, ended up so far away from where Margaret Gillies had painted it.<\/p>\n
A new home<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n The portrait has now returned to London. In October 2019, it was unveiled in its new home, The Charles Dickens Museum<\/a>. It looks across the study to Dickens\u2019s desk, a reminder of a young idealistic man who so desperately wanted to make the world a kinder, more charitable place.<\/p>\n Following the death of her lover, in Italy, in 1861, Margaret Gillies set up home in London with her sister Mary. Margaret died in 1887, a month before her 84th birthday. Through the rediscovery of the lost portrait, the name of Margaret Gillies is returning, albeit slowly, to the public consciousness. Her obituaries wrote of a grande dame<\/em> of the art world, but glossed over her private life, although Gillies would hopefully have been gratified by an obituary in the Derbyshire Advertiser which described her as a \u201cpioneer\u201d of female artists, who had smoothed the way for \u201call the sister-women who have come after\u201d.<\/p>\n Probably the obituary writers knew nothing of the real life of this woman, who had crawled through suffocatingly hot mining tunnels, sketching heartrending images of women and child workers, who were often forced to strip while working, to escape death by heat exhaustion. Gillies\u2019s legacy remains in the works she produced, her illustrations as shocking and heart rending as Dickens\u2019s writing \u2013 just far less frequently remarked upon today.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lucinda Hawksley is the author of Dickens\u2019s Artistic Daughter, Katey<\/em><\/p>\n If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0page or message us on<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n And if you liked this story,\u00a0sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n