Henry James on Vernon Lee

 "Receive from me  a word of warning about Vernon Lee.  my reasons are several, and too complicated, some of them, to go into, but one of them is that she has lately, as I am told [in a volume of tales called Vanitas, which I haven't read] directed a sort of satire of a flagrant and markedly 'saucy' kind at me [!!] -  exactly the sort of thing she has done to others [her books - fiction - are a tissue of personalities of the hideous roman-a-clef kind] and of a particularly impudent and blackguardly sort of thing to a friend and one who has treated her with such such particular consideration as I have.

"... she is as dangerous and uncanny as she is intelligent - which is saying a great deal.  Her vigour and sweep of intellect are most rare and her talk superior altogether,  but I don't agree with you at all about her 'style', which I find insupportable, and I find also that she breaks down in her books.. There is a great second-rateness in her first-rateness.... At any rate, draw it mild with her on the question of friendship. She's a tiger-cat!"

to William James 1893

Henry James on Burne-Jones December 1886

" I see Burne-Jones from time to time but not as often as I should like - I am always so afraid of breaking in on his work.  Whenever he is at home he is working - and when he isn't working he's not at home.  When I do see him, it is one of the best  human pleasures that London has for me.  But I don't understand his life - that is the manner and tenor of his production - a complete studio existence - with doors and windows closed, and no search for impressions outside - no open air, no real daylight and no looking out for it.  The things he does in these conditions have exceeding beauty - but they seem to me to grow colder and colder - pictured abstractions - less and less observed.  Such as he is, however, he is certainly the most distinguished artistic  figure among Englishmen today  - the only one who has escaped vulgarization and on whom claptrap has no hold.  Moreover he is, as you know, exquisite in mind and talk - and we fraternize greatly."

to Charles Eliot Norton

P R Sisters 2

 

ANNIE MILLER  1835-1925

The daughter of a footsoldier, Miller grew up in poverty in the back streets of Chelsea, close to Holman Hunt’s studio.  Aged 18 she posed for the figure of a remorseful ‘fallen woman’ in his The Awakening Conscience.  Hunt then paid for her to be educated in literacy and ladylike manners as a suitable wife.

During Hunt’s travels in Egypt and Syria in 1854-6 she posed for John Millais, D.G.Rossetti. Arthur Hughes, Charles Collins and others. ‘She is a good girl and behaves herself very properly’, Millais reported.

In 1859, Hunt ended their engagement on the grounds of Annie’s ‘wilfulness’ and frivolity.  He offered assisted emigration, which she rejected in favour of modelling. ‘She  looks more beautiful than ever’, noted George Boyce.

When she encountered Rossetti at the International Exhibition in 1862, she was with ‘rather a swell’ and looking very handsome.  Her escort was an officer in the Volunteer reserve forces related to Lord Ranelagh named Thomas Thompson.  He and Annie married in 1863.  With a son and a daughter the couple moved to Richmond and then the south coast, where Annie died at age 90.

PR Sisters 1

Exhibition labels are fugitive texts.  They are also compressed and strictly informative.    It's instructive to see how they read  a few, or many, years later.  There follow those from the 2019-20 NPG exhibition

 ELIZABETH SIDDAL  1829-1862##

The London-born daughter of a Sheffield cutler and shopkeeper, she entered the Pre-Raphaelite world modelling for Walter Deverell, Holman Hunt and John Millais before becoming Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s model and muse.

Tall, slim and pale, with auburn hair, she was not considered beautiful by conventional standards, but appeared so in images like Millais’ Ophelia and Rossetti’s Beatrice.

An aspiring artist, she was the sole female exhibitor in the 1857 Pre-Raphaelite show that travelled to the US.  Inspired by the poetry of Tennyson and Browning and Scottish ballads, her watercolour works were on a small scale, suitable for illustration.

After a long engagement she and Rossetti married in 1860, becoming friends with Jane and William Morris and the Burne-Joneses.  In 1861 her daughter was stillborn, causing post-natal psychosis, and subsequent death from opiate overdose.    Later, Rossetti retrieved the poems he had placed in her coffin, explaining that ‘art was the only thing for which she felt seriously [and] had it been possible, I should have found the book on my pillow the night she was buried.’ 

Bring Winifred home to Yorkshire

 

Help The De Morgan Museum bring Winifred Home. 

Support the public display of a rare portrait by Evelyn De Morgan.

 

The De Morgan Museum is launching an urgent appeal to bring home and display this captivating portrait by celebrated Victorian female artist, Evelyn De Morgan. Depicting her young cousin, Winifred Bulwer, on one of their family holidays to Cannon Hall, this is a unique example of De Morgan’s seldom-seen portraiture

Championing a female artist

 

‘Portrait of Winifred Bulwer' (1880) is a stunning oil painting by Evelyn De Morgan (1855 - 1919), one of the most prominent female artists of the Victorian period. De Morgan rose to fame despite the challenges of social convention preventing women from becoming artists. At the beginning of her career, De Morgan made no fewer than three intimate portraits of close family members. With an arresting forward gaze and obvious ease with the artist, these intriguing artworks are unlike De Morgan’s historical and mythological subjects for which she is best known.

 

Saving local history

 

This portrait has been acquired for free public display at the De Morgan Museum at Cannon Hall, Barnsley, once a stunning 16th century mansion at which both artist and sitter spent happy summers with extended family. Displaying the painting here would at once enhance the understanding of De Morgan’s full artistic range and add an important piece of local history. The portrait will be displayed alongside scrapbooks of photographs and drawings which depict Winifred playing in the grounds of Cannon Hall, an activity still enjoyed by thousands of families today.

 

With your help, the De Morgan Museum now has the exciting opportunity to ensure this portrait will remain on public display in perpetuity from July 2023, for all to enjoy.

 

Please donate

 

This painting has been purchased with support by Art Fund and the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund who have recognised the importance of this painting for the De Morgan Museum at Cannon Hall, its audiences, and researchers.

 

The De Morgan Museum needs to raise £10,000 to prepare this portrait for display at its museum by Friday 21 July.

 

With just two weeks to reach our target, the De Morgan Foundation needs your help urgently. Please give as generously as you can: all donations, no matter how much, bring us one step closer to displaying this masterpiece for everyone to enjoy.

 

#BringWinifredHome

 

Associated Events

Friday 14 July, 12pm | Online Event

 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/recently-discovered-portrait-by-evelyn-de-morgan-talk-with-jan-marsh-tickets-672888326097?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

Learn more about the history of this beautiful painting and the artist who made it with the Director of the De Morgan Museum, Sarah Hardy, in conversation with renowned art historian and Pre-Raphaelite specialist, Jan March.

 

Sarah and Jan will outline De Morgan’s artistic career with a focus on her other portraits; a rare undertaking for the artist who only painted those closest to her. Sarah will also introduce the sitter, Winifred Bulwer, who was a child when her picture was painted. Much about Winifred’s life is known through scrapbooks which document her childhood family holidays at Cannon Hall, a place of importance to artist and sitter.

 

 

Links

https://www.gofundme.com/manage/help-the-de-morgan-museum-bring-winifred-home

 

 

Annie Miller

 a wonderful portrait drawing of Annie Miller in 1853 by Holman Hunt that's new to public gaze is being sold at Sothebys on 5 July.   the house does not allow capture  of the image, but it opens here 

 https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/master-works-on-paper-from-five-centuries-2/annie-miller

Coming next spring

 

Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920 | Tate Britain