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| | National Portrait Gallery Research Art of the Picture Frame Martha Somerville |
 | | Mary Somerville's portrait, a chalk drawing by James Swinton dated 1848, today hangs at Bodelwyddan Castle in Wales, one of the National Portrait Gallery's regional partnerships, in a plain flat gilt frame with sanded sides and rosette corners. |
 | | But when the picture came to the Gallery in 1883, as the result of a bequest by Mary Somerville's daughter, Miss Martha Charters Somerville, it was housed in a 'richly carved brown wooden oval frame', as it was described in the 1888 NPG catalogue. |
 | | Before the portrait was accepted, George Scharf, the Gallery's Director, wrote to Sir William Ramsay Fairfax, Martha Somerville's executor: 'I have heard incidentally that the carved frame is massive and elaborate and possibly in excess of what the Trustees might deem suitable among the other frames in the Collection. |
| www.npg.org.uk /live/frsomer.asp (600 words) |
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