'Novel' drawing sold to Harris Museum A fine pencil study by Sir William Charles Ross has just been sold by Sim Fine Art to the Harris Museum, a major regional collection that specialises in the history of the textile industry in the North West.

The work is a portrait study of one Elizabeth Horrocks nee Miller, who was the sister of Thomas Miller, the textile baron who is reputed to have been the model for the pompous Mr Bounderby in Charles Dickens' withering satire of industrialisation and utilitarianism, 'Hard Times'. By 1856, when the portrait was drawn, Elizabeth had married Samuel Horrocks Jnr, the other branch of the Horrocks Miller dynasty.

The artist, Sir William Charles Ross, was the leading miniaturist of his day, with a glittering appointments book that included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.