Who is the boy? [9]

Laurens Alma Tadema,  Head study, c1858, Walters AG Baltimore

 

the model for this fairly roughly painted study was presumably a young man in Antwerp, there the artist studied and worked in the late 1850s.  He wears a black shirt under a dark brown coat and a fur or rather wool-trimmed cap. An unlocated companion work depicting a profile head of the same sitter shows the cap was  leather-crowned, with the deep astrakhan brim seen full face here and standing in for the boy's [presumed] dark curly hair.  Presumed also a boy, because clean-shaven, although he might be quite a bit older.  And presumed of African ancestry owing to his dark skin, and warm coat and cap against European winter.   Therefore presumed to have been a seafarer,  moonlighting it were in Antwerp between sailings.

But he could have been born anywhere from the Caribbean to Indonesia, and a permanent resident in Antwerp's busy entrepot.  His abstracted expression suggests that the arftist was chiefly concerned with the work as a study in dark tones rather than portraiture, although the lad's static features are enlivened by the reflected lights on nose and lip.

Whatever, Alma Tadema was sufficiently pleased with both his studies of the unnamed model to take them with him when he moved to Britain, and keep them in his studio there.

who is the boy? [8]

D G Rossetti, study of sleeping youth 1867 BMAG

One African boy about which some fragmentary information is known is the sleeping child Rossetti added to his watercolour versions of the Return of Tibullus to Delia in the 1860s.

He was  not, as has been supposed, the same lad who modelled for the Black child in Rossetti's Beloved of 1865.  But a ship's boy recruited from the Sailors' Home or hostel in London's docklands.  This was in same are as the the animal merchant Jamrach, from where Rossetti purchased his wombat and other creatures for his garden menagerie.

According to Harry Dunn, Rossetti's studio assistant, when DGR thought to introduce a house slave supposed to be guarding the threshold of Delia's Roman house, 'it was a puzzle where to find a regular little Nubian.'   [Nubian being the preferred Victorian term for 'Black African' when the Nword wasn't used.] 

Dunn, whose recollections are only partly reliable, then accompanied Rossetti to Whitechapel. 'Down many squalid streets we traversed and at last found ourselves in one broad thoroughfare  abounding with ships drawn up close to shore, their bowsprits overlapping into the roadway.   A  motley crowd of sailors of all nations and garbs and tongue thronged the place;  through this miscellaneous melee we passed until the Home was reached, and at last our search was rewarded by finding exactly the lad who was required;  and with explanations to the object of our mission, it was arranged that the little fellow should make his appearance at Cheyne Walk the following  day.

'The little Nubian came the next day, but as Rossetti remarked, he was so dusky that you could see his clothes moving about, but not the boy'.[H T Dunn Recollections 1984, 32-3]

The lad's near-invisibility perhaps owed more to the curtained gloom within the studio, and the poor eyesight that soon threatened the artist's livelihood, than to the tone of his skin, but does indicate his African origin.

It also contributed to his near-invisibility in the two coloured versions of the subject, one of which recently sold for £100k in London.

DG Rossetti, The Return of Tibullus to Delia, watercolour, 1868, Sothebys July 2022

Look carefully and Tibullus is stepping over his sleeping form.  [The brighter hues here in the 1867 version below are from the reproduction not the original] 

D G Rossetti, Return of Tibullus to Delia, watercolour 1867, unlocated

Who is the boy? [7]

John Ritchie Winter, St James Park London, 1858

 I've often wondered about this picture of Londoners on the frozen lake in St James' Park, and used it as an example of Victorian artists including a token Black figure in crowd scenes to convey urban  diversity.  The lad in the centre, skating so fast or inexpertly that he is about to crash behind the group of urchins, is well dressed in some kind of livery and top hat, so must be intended as a young footman who has escaped his household duties for the day. Were such servants still common in the 1850s, or is the artist alluding to an earlier social habit, when it was fashionable to have a [pair of] handsome Africans answering the front door and riding pillion on the family coach?

Ritchie (1828-1905) mostly concentrated  on genre scenes as far as I can judge, but no more Black figures are visible in his known works - not even in the companion piece to Winter in St James' Park, Summer in Hyde Park, where all the picknicking and fishing characters are white.    

Who is the boy? [6]

Peter Lely, Elizabeth Murray Countess Dysart c1651, Ham House

This is a series that could run and run  and one can be forgiven for seeing the unnamed African attendants as mere accessories - animate companions to the fruit and flowers they typically hold.

It's clear from the composition of the portrait of Elizabeth Murray that the artist intended no relationship between her ladyship and the attendant; despite reaching for a rose on his proffered plate, she does not acknowledge his presence any more than she would a table.

His eyes, on the other hand, are anxiously fixed on her face, as if to see his service is approved.  Pictorially it works, to affirm  for the viewer her superior status and beauty - white skin, blonde ringlets, sumptuous silk and satin garments.

the suspicion that this is a stock figure for pictorial not biographical purposes is supported by a young fellow in another formal portrait by Lely [or his studio], where the lad reaches for orange blossoms and Lady Elizabeth remains impassive. Obviously, her portrait is the purpose of the image and she'd probably be depicted in much the same manner if her companion were her husband or child. These are not depictions  of daily life and the details are all conventional. 

Peter Lely, Elizabeth Wriothesley Lady Noel c 1660s, Petworth

 Nonetheless,  there will have been African boys whom the artists in order to include them in the picture - no doubt for various canvases in this period.  Their identities remain unknown and unknowable, but the critical mass of their images indicates a substantial presence

 

Who is the boy? [5]

Wenceslaus Hollar, profile head of boy, 1635, FAM SF

One frequently reproduced image is this, of an unnamed  young servant, etched by Hollar perhaps to advertise skill in shading.    Hollar's output was prodigious, so the date  on this impression 1635 is the only clue to further information.  Born in  Prague in 1607, after his father's death in 1630 Hollar travelled and worked in Germany and Flanders before joining the Earl of Arundel's entourage and moving to Britain.  

If the portrait was executed in 1635, it was probably drawn in Antwerp from a boy employed in a Flemish household.  A decade later, Hollar was again in the city, as a Royalist exile, seeking work where he could find it, and another impression was produced, with the date 1645.  A good number of prints are known, with and without dates.

Wenceslaus Hollar, profile head of boy, 1645

Hollar returned to England in 1652, where he worked for Charles II and died in 1677.  Around 1683 a mezzotint copy or spin-off was produced, depicting the sitter in reversed pose, with the added accessory of an ear ring. By which time, if still living, the nameless boy would have been in his sixties.

after Wenceslaus Hollar, NPG  D11877

D

.  

Who is the boy? [4]

 

D G Rossetti, design for Cassandra, 1861-7, BM

The artist described in detail his overcrowded design for the Trojan scene of Hector refusing to heed Cassandra's prophecy before departing for his fatal encounter with Achilles.  He listed all the figures apart from the kneeling Black youth  who holds Paris's helmet  in readiness for battle.  Paris is still dallying with Helen, who's tying on his greaves in a very sexy manner.

In the list, even the Black nanny attending Andromache and baby Astyanax on the far left is mentioned. No models for any of the figures are named, however, and it's not possible to guess the identity of the Black youth.  He is plainly not the same boy who sat for the child in Rossetti's Beloved.  But his features are sufficiently distinctive to  compare with similar figures in works by other contemporaries, and hence possibly guess as his origins, if not name.

DGR described the picture in the following terms: “The incident is just before Hector's last battle. Cassandra has warned him in vain by her prophecies, and is now throwing herself against a pillar, and rending her clothes in despair, because he will not be detained longer. He is rushing down the steps and trying to make himself heard across the noise, as he shouts an order to an officer in charge of the soldiers who are going round the ramparts on their way to battle. One of his captains is beckoning to him to make haste. Behind him is Andromache with her child, and a nurse who is holding the cradle. Helen is arming Paris in a leisurely way on a sofa; we may presume from her expression that Cassandra has not spared her in her denunciations. Paris is patting her on the back to soothe her, much amused. Priam and Hecuba are behind, the latter stopping her ears in horror. One brother is imploring Cassandra to desist from her fear-inspiring cries. The ramparts are lined with engines for casting stones on the besiegers.” 

who is the boy ? [3]

A vibrant miniature of Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, painted by Gustav von Mardefeld, Prussian envoy to Petersburg.  Peter is shown standing on the battlefield patting the head of the African attendant who holds Peter's helmet.

To increase Peter's stature literally and figuratively, the boy is depicted as very young.  He has been identified as Abraham of Ibrahim Hannibal ( c1696-1781) who was kidnapped in Africa and adopted by [or presented to] Peter. He later became chief military engineer in the Russian Army.  Alexander Pushkin was Hannibal's great-grandson, so there is an unusual amount of information.

But like so many, this ID may well be wishful.  The portrait dates from around 1720 when Hannibal was in his 20s.   Even if the image could have included a representation of Hannibal as he might have been on arrival in Russia, this cannot be a portrait of him as a boy.  If painted from life, the sitter was yet another unnamed  young African, shown in finery to enhance his companion's superiority.  

who is the boy? [2]

William Dobson, John Byron, 1640s, Manchester U

 A better known but still unnamed Black attendant is seen in William Dobson's portrait of Sir John Dobson [later first Lord Byron] (1599-1652).   The young man, depicted unrealistically as a child in order to convey his social inferiority,, holds the bridle of Dobson's giant grey while Byron points to two mounted figures in the background, presumably referencing Byron's participation in Civil War battles.  He became the first baron Byron following the battle of Newbury in 1643.  The portrait may mark this event, as Dobson was an equally loyal Royalist.  

It would be great to find that the Byrons of Newstead had an African-born groom at this date.  But as both opportunities and resources for portraiture were limited during during the War, it may also be that the African lad is a fictive figure, as it were, included to emphasise the status of this staunch supporter of Charles I.   He must however have been drawn and painted from a living model.  Or was the figure copied from a pictorial source?  

As is doubtless the case.  The horse was taken, albeit perfunctorily, from Vandyck's great equestrian portrait of Charles I, to enhance the swaggering demeanour of Byron, who was famously proud of the scar on his cheek.  The attendant can probably be found in another aggrandising portrait of the era.

Kehinde Wiley used this painting as the basis for his own image of 1st Lord Byron, where a muscly Black model replaces the baron, and the attendant has been ignored. 

Kehinde Wiley, 1st Lord Byron, 2013, MFA Boston

 

who is the boy ? [1]

#

There are so many black attendants in 17th and 18th European portraiture that it's hard to estimate their number.   Virtually none are named, and one suspects that many were ciphers and signifiers rather than actual servants. Perhaps the art worlds had a stable of young Africans for use as required.  There were enough such working in wealthy households to supply the demand.

Despite the ubiquity, it is worth noting their presence.   As in the unattributed  portrait  of Sir John Chardin in the NPG [above] and Ashmolean [below].  The picture is so disregarded - because so commonplace - that when reproduced the Black boy holding up the maps is hard to discern.    He is more visible in the monochrome image, which also shows the stupendously ornate frame to this painting.

 The three-quarter 50-inch square portrait dates to about 1710  when French-born Chardin was in his 60s.   Born in Paris, he was a jeweller and diamond merchant who settled in England, becoming famous for his travels to Persia and India, to seek gems and expand trade with the East.  The maps in the portrait  refer to these territories, so the servant is not signalling Caribbean properties, though quite possibly Chardin invested there.  

 In any event, he and the [as yet anonymous] artist chose to represent him with the fashionable accessory of the age, an enslaved attendant.

Great Exhibition 1851

 The famous Great Exhibition in London's Hyde Park in summer 1851 included contributions from around the globe in various sections showcasing  industrial and agricultural produce,  including those that would later develop into 'national pavilions'.

Many souvenir publications and images were created to register the Exhibition, including a series of coloured lithographs published Dickinson Bros, illustrating each section with its exhibits. 

 Artist Joseph Nash  (1809-1878) was commissioned to produce pictorial records of the exhibition, and he enlivened the static displays by populating them with appropriately dressed figures, giving the impression of a global audience, albeit sparsely scattered instead of the crowded throng that flocked to the Crystal Palace.

Thus the textiles, equestrian trappings, and  leather goods from 'Tunis' have human accessories wearing fezes.  

Sugar cane and  sacks of unidentified raw material from Trinidad and Bahamas are accompanied by a nursemaid in typical Caribbean attire, in charge of white British children.

while India, grandest of all colonial possessions, with stuffed and caparisoned elephant, is shown with a visiting Moghul group of two men and a boy, escorted by a white gent in top hat.

all and more reproduced in  Dickinsons' comprehensive pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851: from the originals painted for H.R.H. Prince Albert (Dickinson, Brothers, 1854).

Fanny Eaton Memorial

Mary & Brian Eaton in Margravine Cemetery.
The white cross marks Fanny's burial spot.

 When Fanny Eaton died,  she was buried in Margravine cemetery  which stretches alongside the rail line between Barons Court underground station and the new Charing Cross hospital.    Her family could not afford a gravestone, but now her descendant Brian has arranged for a memorial,  which will be installed on 23 September.  Photo to follow.

South Sea Bubble illustrated

Alas, not by a contemporary.  A visual re-enactment rather like a dramatised documentary episode.  By Victorian stalwart Edward Matthew Ward.  One half of a prominent artistic partnership. 

EM specialized in multi-figure costume dramas set in the Georgian era.  Such as the Scene in Change Alley at the moment the South Sea Bubble burst.   Set in 1820, painted and exhibited in 1847.  Now in Tate Collection.

 

Also in Tate Collection is Ward's imagined image of Dr Johnson waiting vainly for admission to Lord Chesterfield's presence. 

The two pictures include Africans attendant on fashionable ladies.  They advertise Ward's historical knowledge.  And perhaps in the South Sea Bubble painting, a reference to the South Sea Company's trading business in enslaved Africans.

The Young Catechist

 

I had not previously been aware that the painting The Young Catechist by Henry Hoppner Mayer, now owned by Bristol Art Gallery

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/view_as/grid/search/works:the-young-catechist

was actually an illustration to verses by Charles Lamb. Holding her Book of Common Prayer the white girl is instructing the African in the responses to the Anglican catechism, which will lead to his baptism.

In fact, now I look more closely, Lamb's lines were in fact a literary illustration to the painting.

both are lamentable productions, even if their aims were laudable,

However, both are useful examples of the racist aspect to Abolitionist sentiments and campaigns in the 19th century.

Here's The Young Catechist poem

While this tawny Ethiop prayeth,

Painter, who is she that stayeth

By, with skin of whitest lustre,

Sunny locks, a shining cluster,

Saint-like seeming to direct him

To the Power that must protect him?

Is she of the Heaven-born Three,

Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity

Or some Cherub? —

They you mention

Far transcend my weak invention.

'Tis a simple Christian child,

Missionary young and mild,

From her stock of Scriptural knowledge,

Bible-taught without a college,

Which by reading she could gather,

Teaches him to say Our FATHER

To the common Parent, who

Colour not respects, nor hue.

White and black in him have part,

Who looks not to the skin, but heart

Modern PR Visionaries UPDATE

STUDY DAY   #

 ##Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries conference

In a Wood so Green, Frederick Cayley Robinson

Date: 9 September 2022

Location: Art Gallery & Museum

Time: 9:00 - 15:30

The conference is open to all, but will be particularly suitable for academics, museum professionals, students, and those with a prior understanding of the field.

https://warwickdc.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173631030/events?TSLVq=c5e02205-112b-4f6c-b93c-2fe3405377aa&TSLVp=19f95679-919f-47db-a965-c4919c99c292&TSLVts=1659101088&TSLVc=ticketsolve&TSLVe=warwickdc&TSLVrt=Safetynet&TSLVh=a6acc4285ce38cefa05a769e4465b5a2

To celebrate our current exhibition, Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries, British Art 1880-1930, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum is organising a conference to explore the themes and ideas behind the exhibition and to examine the ongoing art historical legacy of this period in British Art.

This exhibition has offered the opportunity to re-examine a number of works by a host of ‘forgotten’ British Artists working at the turn of the twentieth century, whose work was inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and European Symbolism, and who sought to understand their place in the changing modern world. It has allowed Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum’s important collection of work by Frederick Cayley Robinson, Simeon Solomon and William Shackleton to be contextualised by loans from across the country, raising the profile of these artists and their significance in the canon of British Art.

Please join us to discuss the life, work and significance of these artists on 9 September 2022 in person at the Royal Pump Rooms. The conference is open to all, but will be particularly suitable for academics, museum professionals, students, and those with a prior understanding of the field.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Elizabeth Prettejohn (University of York) and Dr Sarah Victoria Turner (Deputy Director at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/ Yale University) will be giving the two keynote presentations at the conference. They will be joined by Dr Alice Eden (Research Curator, Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries Exhibition) who will be discussing her work on the exhibition. The full programme of talks and speakers will be announced in due course.

Lunch, tea and coffee will be provided

Proposed Schedule (subject to amendment):

9:00-10:00      Registration, tea and coffee

The exhibition will be open for viewing to conference delegates before public opening hours

10:00- 10:15    Welcome

10:15-11:15    Dr Elizabeth Prettejohn - Revaluations: Stories of British Art 1880-1930

11:15-12:15    New Voices: Presentations by two Early Career Researchers      

12:15–13:00    Lunch

13:00-13:30    Dr Alice Eden - Curator’s Introduction to Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries

13:30-14:00    Break with chance to view exhibition

14:00-15:00    Dr Sarah Victoria Turner - “Cayley Robinson: a mystical modern”

15:00-15:30    Wrap Discussion

 Cost: £15 standard / £5 concessions including students

This conference has been generously supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries: British Art 1880-1930 has been supported by the Art Fund, the Garfield Weston Foundation, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Albert Dawson Trust and Friends of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum