[log in to unmask]" type="cite"> Hi all
My immediate thought on looking at the picture and before reading the all correspondence was that it was Mantell, so interesting to see that others think so too.

I think if you look at the image on Wikepedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gideon_Mantell.jpg>
rather than the GS one, the likeness is striking - 'hooded' eyes,  lips look fuller,  though still not quite as full as unknown man, deep groove below the nose, high cheekbones and same ear shape/lobe. Nose is identical in all 3 images. Age, if Patrick's wife is right about the dress being 1820s, is about right too. Mantell would have been in his 30s in the 1820s.
Best
Cherry



--On 18 November 2011 15:46 +0000 RTJ MOODY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Joe, Cynthia and Christopher I am really enjoying this exchange. I think that Joe’s deduction that the portrait is unlikely to be a palaeontogist is sound.

Please keep the messages coming in. I am sure Hellen has some more clues hidden in the NHM Library.

Regards to all

Dick
------ Forwarded Message
From: Joe McCall <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:24:27 -0000
To: RTJ MOODY <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Image identification

Fascinating.  It dates I think from about 1800-1820(?), and makes me think of Howard (pioneer on meteorites).  The background suggests not a palaeontologist, someone dealing in

------ End of Forwarded Message


Dear HOGG,

I should like to support Dr. Susan Turner’s suggestion that this may be the young Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790-1852).  Although I can only cite it as a secondary source, you may wish to look at ‘Strange Science’ website – weblink < http://www.strangescience.net/mantell.htm > - with a brief biography of Mantell, and a portrait of a young man in near identical dress, with a similarly high hairline, but with long side-burns (cut and pasted below).  The author of this biography cites the source of the portrait as Yvette Gayrard-Valy’s Fossils : Evidence of Vanished Worlds (1994), to which (or to whom) you may wish to refer for the source of the portrait.

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HI Dick,
Sorry I can' t help either as he is not wearing a 'dress'. Would have stood a better chance if he was female. What about Sue's suggestions of Mantell or Owen following Patrick's very good analysis of clothing. Perhaps Tony Brooks might be able to help here with Mantell.
Regards
Cynthia






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Dr Cherry Lewis
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Bristol
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