3-034-845 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Ancestral Portrait, drawn by E. N. Downard, 1871. Illustration to a short story by John Latey. 'These young ladies had one peculiarity, and a very pleasant one it was. On the birthday of any one of the family - which, with its offshoot, was a numerous one - they repaired to the picture-gallery and decorated his or her portrait with laurel intermixed with holly or flowers, according to the season. Nor did they confine their attention to the living. All who had been known to themselves or to their uncle and aunt were in turn thus distinguished. They went still further back, and decked the portraits of all who had distinguished themselves in the Bassett annals. Chief among these was the founder or reviver of the family - the gentleman who, in the opinion of the bailiff, and of others too, "looked uncommonly awkward in his stiff frill." As his birthday was not clearly ascertainable, it was resolved that he should be honoured at Christmas; so, every year, as the great festival came round, their progenitor's portrait gleamed out of a framework of laurel and holly'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.