拍品專文
Carlyle (1795-1881), born in Scotland but later living in Chelsea, London, was best known as an essayist (for the Edinburgh Review) and historian. His major works included French Revolution (1837), Oliver Cromwell (1845), and History of Frederick the Great (circa 1865). This portrait was taken the year after the death of his wife, Jane Baillie (née Welsh), a descendant of John Knox. She left a diary, discovered and read by Carlyle in which she described her suffering and neglect as a result of his absorption in his work. Publicly perceived as a genius, his Reminiscences, written the same year and published unedited in 1881, showed him to be subject to bouts of nervous depression and bursts of temper. Cameron's portrait, while showing an artistic and powerful man, also hints at this inner sadness or melancholy.