'The Gun-Group' portrait

This is an actual photograph of 'The Gun-Group' portrait - an oil painting produced by Branwell around 1833/34. The photograph is now in extremely poor condition (as seen here. The subjects are, from left to right: Anne, Charlotte, Branwell and Emily. Shortly after Patrick Brontë's death in 1861, Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls (pictured on right), took the painting back with him to his home town of Banaghar, in southern Ireland. He tore off the section showing Emily and destroyed the remainder believing the likenesses of the other three to be so poor. The original 'Emily' section is now on display in the National Portrait Gallery, London. This photograph is believed to have been taken around 1860, and was discovered, by Dr. Juliet Barker, amongst some papers left to the Brontë Society in 1989.