Beschreibung:

Dickens, Charles LOCK OF HIS HAIR dark brown with some strands of white hair, tightly coiled in a miniature oval glass-fronted case (12 x 4mm), opposite a hand coloured photographic portrait of Dickens, Gurney and Son, c.1867, probably cut down from a carte de visite (28 x 22mm), housed within a hinged yellow gold locket, at least 14 kt, engraved "9th June 1870" above the lock of hair, the covers with the applied monograms "CD" and "MD", together with an autograph note of provenance signed by Dorothy Dickens ("...this locket containing the portrait & hair of the late Charles Dickens my grandfather ... was given by him to his daughter Mamie, from whom it descended to me...") and an autograph letter signed by Dorothy Dickens to the auctioneers Puttick and Simpson further confirming the provenance of the locket following its sale at auction, 2 pages, 8vo, 25 August 1903, all housed in a bespoke book-form brown morocco box and slipcase, the locket in a red velvet cushion, the letter and document edge-mounted, the slipcase gilt and lettered "Dickens Locket", the document split at fold, the letter and document both seemingly reattached at a later date, box rubbed