Let Me In: The Brontës in Bricks and Mortar

Entertaining lecture at the National Portrait Gallery focusing on the two paintings of the Bronte Sisters by their brother, Branwell, in the gallery.

The talk was made by the dry, Yorkshire wit of the speaker, Sharon Wright, who has written a book of the title of the talk looking at the interior spaces of the family. At one point, as she told us a particular melancholy story, she added "I know it's a bit of a downer but it is the Brontes".

She focused on the two paintings, one of Emily, cut down from a larger one of the three sisters, and the famous one of the sisters with a painted out Branwell. She talked about how they were painted and their subsequent history after their father's death.

She talked about going to the house where they were found in Ireland where Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls lived after he left Yorkshire taking them with him. They were unknown to anyone for 50 years until they were found by a maid who was dusting the top of a wardrobe in 1913 entering the gallery's collection in 1914.

There was a lively Q&A after with many Bronte fans in the audience, during which Wright talked about her biography of the sisters' mother quipping that she should have called it "Mothering Heights".