Charles Dickens sat for this portrait in Antoine Francois Jean Claudet's London studio about 1852. It is one of the earliest photographic portraits of Dickens known to exist. Soon after his portrait session he commissioned an article on photography for Household Words, the British weekly that he edited between 1850 and 1859. The daguerreotype was a gift to the Library Company in 1940.

Sarah J. Weatherwax
Curator of Prints and Photographs

Five readers correctly identified the sitter. Those individuals are:

Steven Rothman
Nancy Nitzberg
Stephen Harlen
Gordon Marshall
Jeannette Ullrich