This charming portrait miniature was painted by Charlotte Brontë, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters and author of Jane Eyre. It shows Sophia Hudson, a friend of the Brontës who hosted Charlotte and her friend Ellen Nussey in 1839. This portrait was probably painted during that stay. Charlotte gave the portrait to Hudson as a gift, and it was passed on first to her niece, then to her son, before going missing in 1895. It resurfaced in 2001 at a sale in Nottingham and was bought by miniatures collector Esme Valerie Eliot, widow of the poet T. S. Eliot. In 1990 Valerie had established the Old PossumÂ’s Practical Trust, a charity to support projects in the arts, and following her death in 2012 the miniature was put up for sale through the trust.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Portrait of Mrs Hudson, 1839
Date supported
2013
Medium and material
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
6.8 x 5.5 cm
Grant
9375
Total cost
37500
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