St. John Henry Newman: Photograph & Portrait Page

The following photographs and portraits (above the ten asterisks below) are from The National Portrait Gallery, London: which was founded in 1856. Its purpose is ‘to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and … to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media’.

The license for all of these NPG images is Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Unknown (etching, 1841)

Unknown (etching, 1841)

Probably after Thomas Robinson Green (collotype, 1841)

George Richmond (chalk, 1844)

Richard Woodman, after Sir William Charles Ross (stipple engraving, c. 1845)

John Alfred Vinter, printed by Day & Son, published by Lander Powell & Co (lithograph, 12 October 1850)

Self-Description of 1848:

“Those sad long years of anxiety have stamped themselves on my face — and now that they are at an end, yet I cannot change what has become a physical effect.” (The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 12; London: 1961-1972, 223)

Henry Joseph Whitlock (albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s)

Henry Joseph Whitlock (albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s)

Adolphe Paul Auguste Beau (after Heath & Beau albumen carte-de-visite, December 1861)

McLean & Haes (albumen carte-de-visite, 1864)

Self-Description of 1863:

“I am an old man; my hair white, my eyes sunk in . . . but when I shut my eyes and merely think, I can’t believe I am more than 25 years old, and smile to think how differently strangers must think of me from my own internal feelings.” (The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 20; London: 1961-1972, 409)

Thomas Woolner (plaster cast of bust, 1866)

Robert White Thrupp (albumen carte-de-visite, 1866)

Robert White Thrupp (albumen carte-de-visite, 1866)

Robert White Thrupp (albumen carte-de-visite, 1866)

Robert White Thrupp (albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s-1870s)

A man who visited Newman in 1875 described him:

“. . . very kindly, with a sort of grave sweet simplicity which coming from so old a man, has in it something inexpressibly touching . . . He looks very aged, hair more white than silvery, body stooped, a very large and prominent nose and large chin, brow which seems good, though one can’t see it for the tangled hair falling over it; an air of melancholy, as of one who has passed through terrible struggles, yet of serenity, as of one who had found peace. Not a priest in his manner – still an Englishman more than a Roman Catholic.” (The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 29; Oxford: 1973-1977, 238, n. 1)

Henry Joseph Whitlock (albumen cabinet card, 1879)

A woman who visited Newman in 1876 described him:

“[It is] impossible to describe his fascination of voice and manner . . . his voice was low and very sweet; it had a wonderful ring of sympathy in it.” (The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 28; Oxford: 1973-1977, 32, n. 2)

Henry Joseph Whitlock (albumen cabinet card, 1879)

Paul Adolphe Rajon, after Walter William Ouless (etching, 1880)

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt (oil on canvas, 1881)

Herbert Rose Barraud (carbon print, 1887)

The poet Francis Turner Palgrave described Newman in 1886:

“[his voice had] much of its old strange sweetness . . . the look of almost anxious searching had passed into the look of perfect peace. His mind was not only bright as ever, but with the cheerfulness and humour of youth. [He welcomed me with] great and perfect humility.” (The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 31; Oxford: 1973-1977, 184, n. 5)

Emmeline Deane (oil on canvas, 1889)

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c. 1863

1864

1867

Sketch by Lady Coleridge, 1874; courtesy of Franciscan nuns of Maryland, Milford-on-Sea

“Lady Coleridge’s mysteriously evocative drawing . . . strikingly conveys the kind of impression his expression and manner made on strangers who met him for the first time.” (John Henry Newman: A Biography, Fr. Ian Ker, Oxford University Press, 1988, 697)

Photograph at Rome in 1879, upon becoming a Cardinal; courtesy of Birmingham Oratory

Louis Barraud (1885)

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