Darwin's "Best" Portrait

The Linnean Society owns many engaging and charismatic portraits, but our likeness of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is perhaps the finest and most famous. Painted by John Collier (1850-1934) in 1881, a year before the great naturalist’s death, it depicts an aged Darwin dressed in a fusc-y cloak and grasping a weather-worn hat, as if departing for travel. His expression is enigmatic, with viewers variously seeing resignation, resolve, and even grief in the furrowed brow and firm set mouth.

It’s an image that was almost never made. Writing to the Society’s Zoological Secretary George John Romanes (1848-1894) in May 1881, Darwin expresses his reluctance to sit for the commission: “It tires me a great deal to sit to anyone, but I should be the most ungrateful and ungracious dog not to agree” (DA/ENG/9/LL/4). Darwin was finally persuaded by the recommendation of his friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911): “If I am to sit, it would be a pity not to sit to a good artist, and from all that I have heard I believe Mr Collier is a very good one”.

Happily, Darwin is reported to have enjoyed the process, remarking that "Collier was the most considerate, kind and pleasant painter a sitter could desire" and the final likeness pleased him greatly: “All my family who have seen it think it the best likeness which has been taken of me, and, as far as I can judge, this seems true”. Darwin’s third son, Francis, agreed: “Many of us who knew his face most intimately, think that Mr Collier’s picture is the best of the portraits”, and Darwin pronounced himself delighted to be “suspended at the Linnean Society”.

In the event, Darwin did not live to see his image take pride of place in our Meeting Room; the hanging was due to take place in April 1882, when his death was announced. The portrait was thus transformed from tribute to memorial, and this no doubt enhanced its subsequent fame. It was much reproduced in the years following, with possibly the most distinguished copy executed by Collier himself in 1883. This version, which some critics consider superior to the original, now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Further copies are to be found in the Darwin family home at Down, and – somewhat incongruously – behind the bar at The Athenaeum Club, where he looms above the gin and whisky bottles.

Will Beharrell, Librarian