"The picture of 'Dolly Varden' which I painted for Dickens was never engraved. Before I began it I made a study of the figure, but only the half-length, down to below the waist. This study was bought by Sir R. Rawlinson, who allowed (without asking my permission) a most villainous chromo-lithograph to be made from it, and one day to my horror I saw it in a shop-window. For anything I know to the contrary, many of these things may have been sold.[55] The original completed picture never left Dickens's possession from the time it was finished till he died, nor was it ever exhibited. The portrait of Dolly (the 'laughing' Dolly) now in the South Kensington Museum, was bequeathed by Forster, who had it from Frank Stone, for whom I painted it. I painted two copies of the 'laughing' Dolly, but I don't know what became of them. I also painted two pictures in which Dolly figures in company with Emma Haredale--in one she is feeling in her pocket for a letter addressed to Miss Haredale, and in the other she is disdainfully treating Miss Haredale's hints about Joe Willet--she throws up her head and 'hopes she can do better than that, indeed!' I have just remembered another--a small half-length--in which she is looking at herself in a mirror and giving her curls a 'killing twist.' I have no idea where these pictures are. I may add that when Dickens came to see (on completion) my portraits of Dolly Varden and Kate Nickleby, which I painted expressly for him, he told me they were 'exactly what he meant.' This, of course, delighted me. They led to a friendship which lasted till his death." It will be remembered that in 1859 the novelist gave sittings for his portrait by Mr. Frith, which was painted as a commission from Forster, by whom it was bequeathed to the Nation. This portrait, now at South Kensington, occupies the most important place between the earlier portraits of Dickens by Samuel Laurence, Maclise, and R. J. Lane, and the later presentments of him by photography.
Footnote 55: That Mr. Frith did not always entertain such an absolute objection to this reproduction is testified by the following memorandum written by him on a copy of the print now in the collection of Mr. W. R. Hughes:--"This is a very good chromo-lithograph from the first study for the picture painted by me for the late Charles Dickens. (Signed) W. P. FRITH, December 23, 1884."