A simple exercise to compare facial similarities and expressions between two portraits —— one of Dylan Thomas by Alfred Janes in the National Museum of Wales collection – and the other being the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ of Emily Brontë by Charlotte…A post inspired by a fascinating excerpt I came across in a precious old paper copy of ‘Brontë Transactions’ volume 14, 1963 – issue 3.

And for the purposes of this exercise only – I have cloned —— nay borrowed Dylan Thomas’ outward twinkle where Charlotte couldn’t! Charlotte —— and Thomas’ beloved Emily —— passed away over half-a-century afore he was born —— on the 27th. October 1914. 

For what my opinion is worth —— I think there is quite a strong likeness between both faces in these portraits – and Branwell’s ‘Pillar Portrait’ of Emily’s face – in the National Portrait Gallery. Agree or disagree? why not leave a comment.

One cosmic gene Emily Brontë and Dylan Thomas undisputably got —— is the same wild head o’ hair! Or as Ellen Nussey once said of Emily’s hair “Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte’s, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz…”

Though can’t help thinking of Dylan Thomas’ wife, Caitlin …

💔

DYLAN THOMAS AND EMILY BRONTE

The only woman I’ve ever loved

“I was reading a good deal in the (British) Museum at this time, and used to spend my lunch hours drifting about the manuscript room. It is always thrilling to see a page of the original Don Juan, or something in Keats’s own handwriting. I never tired of it. One day, in an unfrequented corner of the room, I saw what I took to be a page of Dylan Thomas. I was surprised to find it was a page of an Emily Bronte MS, and I was so struck with the similarity that I bought a sixpenny facsimile and posted it to Thomas. The next day he wrote: ‘Strange that facsimile by E.B. I thought it was a rejected poem of mine when I opened it. Yes, it’s my handwriting, and I can read every word ofit’. A day or two after this I happened on a picture of the three Bronte girls (is it by Branwell, unfinished?) and I was struck by the resemblance between Emily and Dylan Thomas. The dark, slightly popping eyes, the toneless skin and dark hair . . . I told him about it, and he was amused and delighted; and when I accused him of being a reincarnation of her he agreed at once and added: ‘And what is so strange about that? She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved!”

LAWRENCE DURRELL From Dylan Thomas: The legend and the poet edited by E. W. Tedlock, first published by William Heinemann Ltd in 1960; first published in Mercury Books,a Heinemann paperback, in 1963.