This photograph, discovered by Lancashire researcher Robert Haley, 45, in a private Scottish collection, has the words 'Les soeurs Brontë, Londres,' written on the back. Could it be, as Mr Haley believes, the only photograph of the three Brontë sisters together?
Experts at Bradford's National Media Museum were dubious, dating the photograph to the 1850s, by which time two of the sisters, Emily and Anne, were already dead. And Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager at the Parsonage Museum adds, 'We do get contacted regularly by people who have discovered images or portraits they believe may be the Brontës. The thing you have to bear in mind is, why would anyone have wanted to paint or photograph them at that time? They weren't famous and were relatively poor women. There's no reference in any surviving correspondence to a group photograph of the sisters.'
Furthermore, a comparison of the women's features with those of the portraits in existence, shows no resemblance to them. And, whereas the portaits we know show striking family similarities between the three, these three women look completely unalike.
'We would all love to know what the Brontës looked like,' adds Ann Dinsdale. Photography as a common means of portraying people was still in its infancy in the late 1840s when Emily and Anne died, though. Sadly, it is unlikely a group photograph of the three exists.