Blank greetings card with envelope featuring:

Charles Dickens, his characters and the empty chair NPG x135439

© National Portrait Gallery, London

possibly after Harriet Anne Callow (née Smart), after John & Charles Watkins, and after Luke Fildes

This composite image demonstrates the popular repetition of the imagery used to commemorate Dickens. The Watkins brothers' sombre photograph from 1863 of the writer with half-closed eyes is reproduced, surrounded by vignettes of characters from his novels, along with an inset copy of Luke Fildes's drawing The Empty Chair. Fildes, commissioned by Dickens to illustrate his last, unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, made this poignant record of the writer's study shortly after his fatal stroke. Sentimental images such as these chimed... more

Card size: 125mm x 175mm

Images are printed in their original proportions, within a white border.