The picture is closely related to another work by Chapman, Little Nell and her Grandfather, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888 (no.677) and is illustrated in Christopher Wood's Dictionary of Victorian Paintings, 1971, p.232. Little Nell, which measures 28 x 36½in. and is therefore somewhat larger than our picture, also shows the old curiosity shop of Dickens's novel, but there are important differences. The child sits facing in the opposite direction, towards a window which lights the room from the right. Her grandfather, just visible through the door in our picture, assumes a prominent place on the left of the composition. The bric-á-brac also varies considerably, although certain items, notably the suit of armour, appear in both versions, and each introduces copies of well-known paintings. In Little Nell a Velazquez portrait of Philip IV of Spain is propped up on the floor and a Dutch seventeenth-century portrait of a woman hangs on the wall, while in The Old Curiosity Shop a copy of Reynolds's portrait of Miss Theophila Gwatkin ('Simplicity') (Waddesdon Manor) is seen on the left. Many copies of this charming picture are recorded, and it was also engraved by Bartolozzi and S.W. Reynolds. The flowers in the little girl's hands were only added after the engravings were made, and we cannot be sure if Chapman was working from one of them since this section is obscured in his picture. It seems highly likely, however, that he owned a print since he was himself an engraver as well as a painter, and exhibited prints after Reynolds and Hoppner at the Royal Academy (1897, 1903). Further reference to his career as an engraver is made by the open books and prints which litter the floor in both the present picture and Little Nell and her Grandfather. It must also have inspired another work, The Print Collector, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885.