File:SB-03-017-source-1.png

Summary

Description

Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, matching the portrait in H. P. Blavatsky's Scrapbooks, volume 3, page 17, image item 2, associated with the article headed Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson (item 1). The four ornamented corners and arrow-like frame ends, hair bun, cameo with surrounding beads, ruffled collar, single loop/button and background/face hatching correspond to the album image.

The accompanying historical article on p. 192 identifies the sitter as Elizabeth Rowell Thompson and discusses her philanthropy. This is not the different portrait of Miss Elizabeth Thompson, painter, in the 1894 journal. The article's genealogical and phrenological assertions are not independently established here. The artist/engraver and earliest use of this portrait remain unknown.

Source

The Phrenological Journal, September 1877, printed p. 191. The accompanying article begins on p. 190 and continues on p. 192. September is visible on the adjacent primary pages and 1877/p. 191 on the target. Separate issue catalogue metadata identifies vol. 65, no. 3; that issue number is not printed in the cropped portrait itself.

• Wellcome Library volume, Internet Archive.
• Exact complete primary p. 191.
• Article opening, p. 190; biographical continuation, p. 192.
• Separate September issue catalogue.

The visible printed folio controls the reference: the aggregate scan's automated page mapping is one page off at this position. No universal offset is inferred. The alternate journal witness establishes the matching composition, not the physical provenance or date of the album cutting.

Thank you to Wellcome Library, the Medical Heritage Library and Internet Archive for freely providing the complete colour scan and catalogue.

File and processing

Lossless RGB PNG, 2350 × 2410 pixels, exact crop (160, 1160)–(2510, 3570) from the original 2772 × 4653 page JPEG; right/bottom exclusive. All four decorative corner ornaments and both complete frames are retained. The printed borders were checked: long horizontal segments differ by only -6 to +2 pixels across about 1350 pixels; this slight non-uniform paper/print geometry gives no consistent rigid tilt requiring another resampling. No rotation, resampling, enlargement, tonal adjustment, colourization, sharpening, retouching or reconstruction. Natural paper colour, age marks and show-through remain. Final decoded pixels independently reproduce the exact source rectangle. The unchanged original JPEG has SHA-256 2f73be5bc2cdc5be8ec3dc0320aa614d0a1951d63c98b124e1fd188673751df3. Thumbnail display: 200 pixels wide.

Rights

The current specific Internet Archive metadata for s5967id1397959 names Wellcome Library as contributor and supplies Public Domain Mark 1.0, verified 4 November 2026. Public Domain Mark is not CC0. Changes: cropping only.