| Description | Framed, full length pastel portrait of Mary ANNING by Benjamin John Merifield Donne, 1850. From a painting by unknown artist [possibly William Gray], 1842. 23.5" x 20".
Also copy letter from Cyril Wanklyn, Esq, of Overton, Lyme Regis, to Leo Louis Belinfante regarding information he had managed to ascertain on Donne, 21 October 1922, and a newscutting of a short obituary on Donne again written by Wanklyn from the 'Dorset County Chronicle and Somersetshire Gazette', 26 April 1928. |
| Administrative History | Benjamin Merifield Donne was born on 18 July 1831. Thought to have originated in Crewkerne, he moved to Lyme Regis in 1841 as a pupil with George Roberts at his school in Monmouth House, Broad Street. The school was apparently close to Mary Anning's shop so he knew her well. The portrait, which is a copy of the 1842 painting by an unknown artist [possibly William Gray (1818-fl 1883)], was drawn when Donne was 19 years of age, around two or three years after Anning's death. Donne died at the age of 97 on 18 April 1928. |
| Publication Note | Published in: Lang, W D. "Portraits of Mary Anning", 'Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History Society', vol 81, (1960), pp89-91; Martin, K. 'Who's Who in Women's Historical Fiction', Pen and Sword Books, c.May 2012. |