From around 1838 Henry Nelson O'Neil was a member of The Clique, a group of English artists formed by Richard Dadd that met regularly to discuss and critique each other’s works. The group also included Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward. The group broke up in 1843 when Dadd became insane and was incarcerated after murdering his father.
The present self-portrait shows the same man depicted in a smaller self-portrait now in the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (acc. no. K1625), attributed to Henry Nelson O'Neil. Although the two portraits were painted at different times in his life, the structure of his face, the shape of his nose and full lips and his attached earlobes match exactly. In the present picture O’Neil is younger and stylistically it is similar to a self-portrait by William Powell Frith in the National Portrait Gallery, London (inv. no. NPG 2139) dated 1838. It is likely that the present work was painted at a similar date, when The Clique had just formed and were heavily influencing each other’s work.
We are grateful to Richard Green, co-author of William Powell Frith: The People's Painter, for suggesting an attribution to Henry Nelson O’Neil.