QUERY: CHARLES WILLIAM FREMANTLE PORTRAIT SOUGHT

Here at Whitman we’re working on an exciting new book with Karen Lee (curator of the National Numismatic Collection), about George T. Morgan. It’s a combination biography, art-history analysis, and page-by-page recreation of Morgan’s personal sketchbook, which naturally includes many coinage and medal designs. Previously unpublished designs, I might add (to titillate your readers)!

I want to include in the narrative a portrait of Charles William Fremantle, who was deputy master of the British Royal Mint when Henry Linderman was arranging to bring Morgan over to the States to work in Philadelphia. Fremantle was very important in nurturing the connection between Morgan and Linderman. (Of course, that’s just one part of the deputy master’s very important numismatic legacy.)

I’m wondering if any E-Sylum readers have a portrait of Fremantle, preferably from the 1870s, that they might share for inclusion in the book. Any help would be gratefully credited in the acknowledgments.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has a dry-plate glass negative by Alexander Bassano in its collection; unfortunately, Fremantle sat for the portrait in 1898, which is about 20 years past the timeframe I’m looking for (not to mention their imaging and licensing fees are prohibitively expensive). I have a call in to the historians at the British Royal Mint. But I know that American E-Sylum subscribers are a font of homegrown resources, and might have something in their voluminous personal archives.

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web