The portrait miniature of Keats. (Click on image to enlarge).
A miniature portrait of the poet John Keats will be sold at Bonhams in Knightsbridge on May 30. Bonhams believe it to be unique. The portrait, discovered in the United States, was known as it was reproduced in an ‘Autobiography of John Keats: Compiled from His Letters and Essays’ by Earle Vonard Weller (Stanford University Press, 1933).
Jennifer Tonkin, Head of Miniature Portraits, comments: “We believe this miniature to be a unique image of Keats, one of our greatest poets. The majority of contemporary portraits of Keats derive from the miniature painted by his friend, Joseph Severn, in which he is seated with his left hand to his face but this image differs from this and all other extant portraits of the poet in that it portrays him standing against a sky background. Given his untimely death at the age of twenty-five, this image has the power to move anyone who has ever admired Keats’ work.”
Catalogued by Bonhams as ‘Circle of Charles Hayter (British, 1761-1835)’ it shows him wearing a black double-breasted coat and waistcoat, white frilled chemise, stock and tie. The miniature is housed within a gold frame, the reverse glazed to reveal sprays of dark blonde hair decorated with split seed pearls and gilt-wire, set on opalescent glass. The lower rim is also engraved, ‘John Keats 1795-1821’. Most portraits of Keats are posthumous and based on the miniature by Joseph Severn. This one is estimated at £10,000-15,000.