Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman: Photograph and Portrait Page

Undated, by Woodman (from around 1845)
 

Portrait by George Richmond, 1844
 

Photograph: 1865 (courtesy of H.J. Whitlock & Sons, Ltd.)
 

Photograph: 1860s; courtesy of Birmingham Oratory

 

Photograph: 1867

 

Self-Description of 1848:
 
"Those sad long years of anxiety have stamped themselves on my face - and now that they are at an end, yet I cannot change what has become a physical effect."
 
(The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 12; London: 1961-1972, 223)
 

Photograph: 1864

 

Self-Description of 1863:
 
"I am an old man; my hair white, my eyes sunk in . . . but when I shut my eyes and merely think, I can't believe I am more than 25 years old, and smile to think how differently strangers must think of me from my own internal feelings."
 
(The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 20; London: 1961-1972, 409)
 

Photographs: c. 1863

 

Engraving by Brown: 1873

 

A man who visited Newman in 1875 describes him:
 
". . . very kindly, with a sort of grave sweet simplicity which coming from so old a man, has in it something inexpressibly touching . . . He looks very aged, hair more white than silvery, body stooped, a very large and prominent nose and large chin, brow which seems good, though one can't see it for the tangled hair falling over it; an air of melancholy, as of one who has passed through terrible struggles, yet of serenity, as of one who had found peace. Not a priest in his manner - still an Englishman more than a Roman Catholic."
 
(The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 29; Oxford: 1973-1977, 238, n. 1)
 

Sketch by Lady Coleridge, 1874; courtesy of Franciscan nuns of Maryland, Milford-on-Sea

 

A woman who visited Newman in 1876 describes him:
 
"[It is] impossible to describe his fascination of voice and manner . . . his voice was low and very sweet; it had a wonderful ring of sympathy in it."
 
(The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 28; Oxford: 1973-1977, 32, n. 2)
 
Biographer Ian Ker adds:
 
"Lady Coleridge's mysteriously evocative drawing . . . strikingly conveys the kind of impression his expression and manner made on strangers who met him for the first time."

(John Henry Newman: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1988, 697)

Photograph at Rome in 1879, upon becoming a Cardinal; courtesy of Birmingham Oratory

Painting by W.W. Ouless, 1879; courtesy of Birmingham Oratory 

 Photograph: c. 1884; Bettmann Archive

 

Photograph: Louis Barraud, 1885
 

Photograph by Louis Barraud, 1885

 

The poet Francis Turner Palgrave described Newman in 1886:
 
"[his voice had] much of its old strange sweetness . . . the look of almost anxious searching had passed into the look of perfect peace. His mind was not only bright as ever, but with the cheerfulness and humour of youth. [He welcomed me with] great and perfect humility."
 
(The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Stephen Dessain et al., vol. 31; Oxford: 1973-1977, 184, n. 5)
 

Portrait by Emmeline Deane, 1889; courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

 

1889

by Henry J. Whitlock

 Portrait by Sir John Everett Millais, National Portrait Gallery, London

Close-Up of Millais Portrait

 



Selected, compiled, and (partially) scanned by Dave Armstrong: 10 December 1999; additions on 28 August 2002. Added to blog on 20 November 2006, with four photographs added. Revised with a few better (or lightened) versions on 17 June 2011, with six new photos / portraits added.