Catherine Dickens numerous—all of which he strenuously denied. In June 1858 Charles and Catherine Dickens separated. The exact cause of the separation is unknown, although attention at the time and since has focused on rumours of an affair between Dickens and Ellen Ternan and/or Catherine's sister, Georgina Hogarth. A bracelet intended for Ellen Ternan had supposedly been delivered to the Dickens household some months previously, leading to accusation and denial. Dickens' friend, William Makepeace Thackeray, later asserted that Dickens's separation from Catherine was due to a liaison with Ternan, rather than with Georgina Hogarth as had been put to him. This remark
William Hogarth a truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain Coram for the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the Foundling Museum, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled "The Shrimp Girl" (National Gallery, London), may be called masterpieces of British painting. There are also portraits of his wife and his two sisters, and of many other people, among them Bishop Hoadly and Bishop Herring. For a long period of his life, Hogarth tried to achieve the status of history painter, but had no great success in this field. Examples of his history pictures are