of a landscape-painter named Deighton.
[73] A picture of a mother and child.
[74] A professional model.
[75] The landlady at Hampstead.
[76] The work (substantially finished some years before) named _Our
Lady of Saturday Night_, in which the Madonna is represented washing
her infant.
[77] Finchley.
[78] White, whose name re-appears frequently in the sequel, was a
well-established picture-dealer in Maddox Street, Regent Street.
The picture here named _Winandermere_ is I think the same as that
heretofore named _Windermere_, or a duplicate of it.
[79] I possess a copy of this lithograph, and cannot regard it as in
any serious sense a failure.
[80] It seems to have come to nothing, as also the “lithotint of
_Baby_.”
[81] For the Great Exhibition of 1855.
[82] As the picture stood at first, the figure of Christ was
unclothed to the waist.
[83] So in the MS.: I do not well understand the phrase.
[84] “This one” means a new diary-book, which commences with the
present entry.
[85] No. 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars; here Dante Rossetti had
Chambers, where I also often passed the night. It was the last house
on the Middlesex side of Blackfriars Bridge, right hand as one turns
out of Fleet Street. The whole of Chatham Place was destroyed towards
1868.
[86] I suppose he meant “composition” or “syntax.”
[87] Thomas Woolner, the Sculptor and P.R.B. His handwriting was very
distinct and precise.
[88] The two streets were (I think) Titchfield Street, Marylebone,
and Torrington Square.
[89] The calf in the picture named _Found_, begun by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti by this date.
[90] Woolner had tried his fortune in Australia, and had now returned
to England.
[91] _The Death of Richard Cœur de Lion_, painted by John Cross.
[92] G. W. M. Reynolds, a well-known novelist and demagogic
journalist of that period: he published a serial called _Reynolds’s
Miscellany_. The existing weekly paper, _Reynolds’s Newspaper_, was,
I think, founded by him.
[93] The “absurd old pictures” include, apparently, an _Ecce Homo_ by
Mattia di Giovanni, the _Vision of St. Bernard_ by Lippo Lippi, &c.
[94] The so-called Albert Durer is now ascribed to Baldung--_Head of
a Senator_.
[95] The picture that Brown terms a Masaccio was, I think, a
portrait--a very telling one. No work now figures under the name of
that master in the National Gallery.
[96] The Rembrandts and Wilkie had been bequeathed to the
Gallery--not purchased by Dyce.
[97] Mr. Wentworth, a leading statesman in Australia, had been
invited to sit for a public statue, and he had been expected to fix
on Mr. Woolner as the sculptor. After long lagging (hence, it seems,
Brown calls him “the Lag”) he selected some different artist.
[98] Brown had known “old Williams” through the Rossetti family.
Dante Rossetti, in his first picture, _The Girlhood of Mary Virgin_,
painted Williams in the character of St. Joachim.
[99] In the completed picture there is not any figure of an artist.
[100] Mr. Richard Burchett, a painter by profession, who held a
leading post in the Department of Art.
[101] Lowes (brother of Robert) Dickinson, the able Portrait painter.
[102] The word written appears to be “obtaining”; perhaps a slip for
“remaining.”
[103] Thomas Seddon, who had been to Egypt and Jerusalem along with
Mr. Holman Hunt.
[104] Dr. John Brown, the originator of “the Brunonian System of
Medicine.” His works and a biography of him have been published,
and a portrait of him is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
Edinburgh.
[105] I may be excused for saying here that I did all that I could. I
put the matter plainly before my uncle Henry Polydore; he, although
“in the law,” knew very little about such concerns, and probably had
to say so.
[106] _The Angel in the House._
[107] This is an anecdote which has been detailed elsewhere. Scott’s
volume contained a fly-sheet title “Poems by a Painter.” Carlyle read
the word “Painter” as being “Printer”; and he wrote to the supposed
working printer in terms apposite to his mis-reading.
[108] The well-known sculptor.
[109] Mr. Windus of Tottenham, a noted picture-collector.
[110] A specimen of fresco-work which Brown had sent to the
Westminster Hall competition, 1844, for the Houses of Parliament.
[111] This means Mr. Windus the picture-collector, who was said to
be the proprietor of the medicine for children known as “Godfrey’s
Cordial.”
[112] I don’t know what Brown meant by “XXX”; perhaps it indicates
that the works were in a very _ex_treme or exaggerated style of
PRB’ism.
[113] This is entitled _The Bridesmaid_.
[114] I suppose the meaning is that Millais and Collins intended to
hire horses, for exercise in riding.
[115] Serjeant Ralph Thomas, a legal gentleman who had bought a great
number of Mark Anthony’s pictures, finished or sketched. Brown (as
the reader may have remarked) was rather free in using the epithet
“scoundrel”--whether with reason or without.
[116] Campbell’s Scotch Stores, Beak Street, Regent Street. The
P.R.B.’s had a liking for this dining-room, as it was hung round
with pictures by Theodore Von Holst. It is now named Blanchard’s
Restaurant.
[117] _i.e._, “Beer.”
[118] “Scoundrel” means a certain personage in _The Last of
England_--a _mauvais sujet_ who shakes his fist as a demonstration
against the old country, in which he has been deservedly unlucky.
[119] His first picture, the _Cimabue_.
[120] _i.e._, a meeting of certain artists, to decide whether or not
they would exhibit for themselves, apart from the R.A.
[121] This description of Michael F. Halliday--as friendly and
obliging a man as I have known--cannot be called good-natured, but I
let it stand for what it is worth. He was not truly a sinecurist, but
a clerk in the House of Lords; neither was he a gent, but a gentleman.
[122] Mr. R. P. Burcham was a druggist, in whose house my sister
Maria and I had at one time taken apartments. I discovered him to be
an amateur artist, of superior attainment in subjects of still life,
such as those painted by W. H. Hunt, of the Watercolour Society. He
was in fact well acquainted with Hunt.
[123] _i.e._, in my house in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, No. 166.
[124] Miss Boyce was a sister of George P. Boyce the water-colour
painter: the head which she exhibited this year was named _Elgiva_.
She afterwards married Mr. Wells the Portrait-painter, and died young.
[125] _The Taming of the Shrew._
[126] A head entitled _Christabel_.
[127] The wrestling scene from _As You Like It_.
[128] Nearly the same subject which Brown had painted in 1849,
_Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear_.
[129] Daughter of the Mrs. Helen Bromley mentioned in p. 64.
[130] This was (as I understand it) the wife of Mr. William Jones, a
solicitor in the City, and at Greenwich: she had been a Miss Madox.
[131] Monti was author of a sculptured bust then very famous, _The
Veiled Vestal_.
[132] Colleone is meant.
[133] Intended to serve as a wing (or as the two wings) for the
_Chaucer_ picture.
[134] I suppose this is the picture called _The Hayfield_.
[135] Brown had a bad habit of using this Latin word as if it meant
“seriously.”
[136] “We” seems to mean Brown himself and Thomas Seddon.
[137] Must be the well-known picture named _April Love_.
[138] _Cromwell on his Farm._ Brown seems by this date to have
settled on the subject, but he had not, I think, made any beginning
with it.
[139] I do not understand this phrase.
[140] _Cromwell at the Deathbed of his Daughter._
[141] Wife of Daniel Casey, the painter, mentioned on p. 94.
[142] Madox Brown’s first wife.
[143] _i.e._, _Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear_.
[144] Jullien’s Promenade Concerts.
[145] The sketch of a street in Hampstead, which Brown had undertaken
as a study for the scene of his picture named _Work_. He gave the
sketch to Mr. Woolner.
[146] A prominent sculptor of that time.
[147] All the three works here mentioned remained in Brown’s
possession up to his death in 1893, and were disposed of in the sale
held soon afterwards.
THE P.R.B. JOURNAL, 1849-53
THE P.R.B. JOURNAL, 1849-53.
The facts regarding the formation of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood,
or P.R.B., have been frequently summarized ere now in print, by
others and by myself: but I must run them over again briefly, in
order to make the P.R.B. Journal the clearer.
In 1848 there were four young students in the Royal Academy
Schools--John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt in the
Life-school, Thomas Woolner in the Sculpture-school, and Dante
Gabriel Rossetti in the Antique-school. Woolner, born in 1825, was
the eldest; Millais, born in 1829, the youngest. These young men were
all capable and ambitious: they had all, except Rossetti, exhibited
something, to which (more especially in the case of Millais) the
Art-authorities and the public had proved not wholly indifferent.
They entertained a hearty contempt for much of the art--flimsy,
frivolous, and conventional--which they saw in practice around
them; and wanted to show forth what was in them in the way of solid
and fresh thought or invention, personal observation, and the
intimate study of and strict adherence to Nature. The young men came
together, interchanged ideas, and were joined by two other youthful
Painter-Students, James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, and
also myself, who was not an Artist. So there were seven men forming
the Præraphaelite Brotherhood. I will not debate at any length why
the term Præraphaelite was adopted. There was much defiance in it,
some banter, some sense, a great deal of resolute purpose, a large
opening for misinterpretations, and a _carte-blanche_ invitation
for abuse. After thus constituting themselves, what they had to do
was to design, paint, and model, and one of them in especial, Dante
Rossetti, to write poetry; and they did it with a will.
Some little while having elapsed, it was determined that one of the
P.R.B.’s should be Secretary, and should keep a journal; and I, as
not being taken up by art-work, was pitched upon for the purpose. I
accordingly began the P.R.B. Journal.
This Journal was entirely my own affair, and was compiled without
pre-consulting any of my fellow-members, and without afterwards
submitting it to them. At the same time, the object of it was
understood to be a record, from day to day, of the proceedings
of _all_ the Members, so far as these were of a professional or
semi-professional character, and came within my knowledge; it was not
in any sense a diary personal to myself (save in so far as I was one
P.R.B. among seven), nor deriving from my own thoughts or feelings.
The Journal was producible to any Member who might choose to ask
for it--I don’t think any one ever did. I used to make it a rule to
myself to mention only the Members of the Brotherhood, along with
some few other persons who came into close relation with them, their
purposes, and their work.
The compilation, as will be seen, extends from 15th May 1849, soon
after the Exhibitions had opened containing the works of the first
year of Præraphaelitism, to 29th May 1853; by which date, mainly
owing to Millais’s picture of _A Huguenot on St. Bartholomew’s Eve_,
the Præraphaelites had practically triumphed--issuing from the dust
and smother of four years’ groping surprise on the part of critics
and public, taking the form mostly of thick-and-thin vituperation.
There are various gaps in the Journal, owing to my own laches; and
several more, owing to a performance by my Brother, justifying the
designation once (I think) applied to him by a cabman, “a harbitrary
cove.” After the Journal had been finally (though not of any set
purpose) discontinued, it lay by me unnoticed for a number of years.
When at last I had occasion to re-inspect it, I found that several
pages had been torn out by my Brother, and several others mutilated.
I never knew accurately--never at all enquired--why he did this. I
suppose that at some time or other he took up the MS. in a more or
less haphazard way, and noticed in it some things which he did not
care to have on record regarding himself, and also in all likelihood
regarding Miss Elizabeth Siddal, to whom he was then engaged. Not
that I recorded anything whatever in a spirit of detraction or
ill-nature concerning either of them--far from that.
Thus the P.R.B. Journal is now much more fragmentary than it need
have been--for the portion destroyed by my Brother amounted, I dare
say, to a fair fifth of the whole. In what remains a good deal is
mere plodding journey-work, of no interest to myself, still less to
others. The extracts here presented may constitute something like a
half of the extant MS.--less rather than more.
I am aware that even these extracts are not written in an
entertaining style: the Journal was intended to be simply, and
rather servilely, a compendium of _facts_. It is however a highly
authentic account of the early stages in a movement which proved of
great importance, and to which much and increasing public interest
has attached--a movement in which men of staunch achievement and
eminent name bore the leading parts. As such, I suppose that the
P.R.B. Journal may be regarded in some quarters as a document not
undeserving of attention.
* * * * *
May 1849.
Tuesday 15th.--At Millais’s--Hunt, Stephens, Collinson, Gabriel, and
myself. Gabriel brought with him his design of _Dante drawing the
figure of an Angel_ on the first anniversary of Beatrice’s death[148]
which he completed in the course of the day, and intends for Millais.
Millais has done some figures of the populace in his design of _The
Abbey at Caen_[149] since last night, and has also continued painting
on the beard in the head of Ferdinand listening to Ariel, being that
of Stephens. He says he has begun his “Castle-moat” poem[150] and is
to continue it after we left (one o’clock). The plan of writing this
diary was fixed, and will, I am in hopes, be steadily persevered in.
We minutely analysed such defects as there are in Patmore’s _River_
from Gabriel’s recitation; who also read his poem (in progress)
intended as introductory to the _Vita Nuova_[151]....
Wednesday 16th.--Gabriel began redesigning _Kate the Queen_[152]....
Thursday 17th.--Millais called on us in the evening. He has gone on
with his Caen Nunnery design, and has put in some fat men, finding
his general tendency to be towards thin ones. He is also progressing
with his poem (the Castle-moat subject)....
Saturday 19th.--... Hunt ... is getting on with his _Monk succoured
by the ancient Britons_ in time of persecution. Woolner has done four
of his heads commissioned by Cottingham[153]--Raphael, Michelangelo,
Titian, and Leonardo--and is engaged on Vandyck.... I understand that
the _Court Journal_, speaking of a picture by one Walters that has
been rejected, exclaims against the injustice, considering that such
works as Hunt’s and Millais’s,[154] which can have been admitted only
for charity, are hung.
Sunday 20th.--Gabriel made considerable progress to-day with his
_Kate the Queen_ design.... Woolner came in the evening, and showed
us two verses of a new song he has begun, having the burden, “My Lady
rests her heavy, heavy rest”[155]....
Monday 21st.--Millais called in the evening, to take Gabriel with
him to Mr. Bateman’s (the Illuminator): they also picked up Woolner
on the way. The visit ... afforded unqualified satisfaction. Gabriel
recited lots of Patmore, Browning, Mrs. Browning, etc.... We (Gabriel
and myself) presented Bernhard Smith, on his departure, with a
Browning, bearing the following inscription--“Ichabod, Ichabod,
the glory has departed. Travels Waring West away?” Smith leaves on
Wednesday[156]....
Wednesday 23rd.--... Hunt ... has completed his design of the
Ancient Britons and Monk, and has resumed the one from _Isabella_,
“He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch.” ... Millais has made
considerable progress with the _Caen Nunnery_, having put-in the
greater part of the populace. He says his poem is considerably
advanced, and that he will work hard on it to-night. He having
informed us, almost as soon as we entered, that he had been reading
Patmore’s _Woodman’s Daughter_ and _Sir Hubert_,[157] and had
found several faults of diction etc. therein, we proceeded to a
most careful dissection, and really the amount of improvable is
surprisingly small--as he also agreed in thinking.... In the course
of conversation, Millais said that he had thoughts of painting a
hedge (as a subject) to the closest point of imitation, with a bird’s
nest--a thing which has never been attempted. Another subject he has
in his eye is a river-sparrow’s nest, built, as he says they are,
between three reeds; the bird he describes as with its head always
on one side, “a body like a ball, and thin legs like needles.” He
intends soon to set about his subject from Patmore, Sir Hubert and
Mabel, “as she issues from the trees”[158]....
Thursday 24th.--... Millais came; soon after which we fell to
portrait-taking. Millais’s, of Woolner, Hancock, and Hunt, have come
highly successful. He has done something to his poem....
Sunday 27th.--Gabriel and I went in the morning, by appointment, to
Dickinson’s,[159] where we met Ford Brown and Cave Thomas. Dickinson
says that, when Cottingham first mentioned to him his intention of
buying Gabriel’s picture, he descanted glowingly on his genius, and
expressed his horror at having “found him in a garret.”[160]
Monday, July 13th.--Hunt, with Gabriel’s co-operation, removed the
majority of his property to Brown’s study, etc.... A most cheeky
letter received from Cottingham, in answer to a civil enquiry
relative to the price payable for the _Morning_ and _Evening_,[161]
left him in a state of profound disgust; when he was relieved
therefrom by a note from Egg[162] informing him that he had sold
the Rienzi picture for 160 guineas to Mr. Gibbons, and requesting
to see him to-morrow morning on some other business. Hunt swears
that he’ll cut Cottingham altogether, and leave him to find another
man of talent (of whom Cottingham asserts that he knows plenty)
to do two fair-sized pictures for £50. In the evening Gabriel and
I went to Woolner’s with the view of seeing North[163] (whom,
however, we did not find at home) about a project for a monthly
sixpenny magazine[164] for which four or five of us would write
and one make an etching, each subscribing a guinea, and thus
becoming a proprietor. The full discussion of the subject is fixed
for to-morrow, at Woolner’s.... Woolner has been working at the
_Euphrosyne_.
Tuesday 14th.--Hunt called on Egg, and received the money for his
picture. Mr. Gibbons is also to give him a commission for not less
than another 100 guineas; and Egg thinks that, after seeing the
picture of the Early Christian which Hunt is now engaged on, he
will probably select that. Gabriel has settled to go with Hunt to
Paris, passing by Ghent and Bruges, which Egg strongly recommends
them to see. A second letter to Gabriel from John Orchard,[165] the
painter, has been received. He had written for the first time nearly
a week ago, expressing the most intense admiration for the _Mary
Virgin_, and entering into a long metaphysical disquisition on the
principle of adopting the mode of thought and the practice of any
preceding age, which he condemns. In his present letter, in answer to
Gabriel’s reply, he says that he hopes to call and see the picture
on Saturday.... We went to Woolner’s to settle on our contemplated
magazine. The title is to be _Monthly Thoughts in Literature and
Art_, with a sonnet on the wrapper....
Wednesday 15th.--... It was proposed that the magazine should be
increased to forty pages, two etchings, and 1s. each No. I wrote the
first eight lines of a sonnet for the wrapper, to be considered with
others....
Thursday 16th.--Gabriel made a study, from a girl whom Collinson
recommended to him, for the head of the angel in his picture,[166]
which head he means to do over again....
Friday 17th.--Gabriel began painting the head of the angel; and he
wrote two stanzas of a French song, _La Sœur Morte_[167]....
Sunday 19th.--Hunt ... has taken his Rienzi picture to Brown’s study,
and is engaged giving it some finishing touches. At Ewell he made a
study (in colour) of a cornfield.... I finished my sonnet, begun on
the 15th, with reference to the wrapper of the proposed magazine. In
the morning Gabriel worked a good deal on the angel’s head, and wrote
the concluding stanza of his French song.
Monday 20th.--Gabriel still at the figure of the angel. Orchard, the
Painter, called in the afternoon, and left Gabriel two sonnets he has
written on his picture....
Saturday 25th.--Gabriel’s picture was sent off to the Marchioness of
Bath. The daguerreotype will be ready on Monday....
Sunday 26th.--Gabriel wrote a sonnet entitled _For the Things of
these Days_[168]....
Tuesday 28th.--... Gabriel thinks of taking, as the incidents for
the two side-pieces in his picture, the Virgin planting a lily and a
rose, and the Virgin in St. John’s house after the crucifixion,[169]
as illustrating the periods of her life before the birth and after
the death of Christ. For the middle compartment, to represent her
during his life, he has not yet settled an incident. He went to see
Woolner, who has finished the first part of _My Lady_, and the poem
is therefore now altogether completed....
Wednesday 29th.--Gabriel thought of taking for the principal
compartment of his commission-picture the eating of the passover by
the Holy Family, in which he proposes to make Zachariah and Elizabeth
joining, as it is said that, if a household were too small for the
purpose, those of a neighbouring household were to be called in. He
made a preliminary sketch of this....
Sunday, August 22nd.--... That this drama[170] gained him great
reputation in many literary circles, though not extensively known by
the public. That Wells married some time after a sister of Williams’s
wife, and settled in Brittany, where he is become a great hunter
and fisher: that, having fallen into some embarrassments, he sent
over to Williams, for him to find a publisher, part of a novel named
_De Clisson_, and other things in prose and poetry; but that he
(Williams) failed generally in his endeavours,--an article entitled
_Boar-hunting in Brittany_ having however been inserted in _Fraser_.
That Mrs. Wells came over recently to offer the _Stories_[171] and
_Joseph_ for republication; but did not succeed. Gabriel hereupon
proposed to make etchings for a new edition, if that might seem
likely to be of any avail, and engaged for Hunt, Millais, and
Woolner, to do the same after Christmas; and Williams says that he
has little doubt but what, with that attraction, a publisher might
be procured; also that he is certain Wells would commit the care of
the edition to Gabriel with complete confidence. Gabriel thinks that,
if each were to do five etchings, and he were to write an elaborate
preface (assuming as an undisputed point the very high character of
the work), and if I, as having more leisure, were to write a full
and minute review soon after the publication, this arrangement would
do. Wells is a most fervent Catholic, but has not (as rumoured)
retired into a convent; which he has compelled two of his daughters
however to do, and urges the third, who was till lately residing with
Williams, to follow their example, to which she is most strongly
opposed. Williams is reader to Smith and Elder, to whom Browning’s
Poems had been offered for republication; when he told them that the
work, as a work, ought to be published, but that he could not advise
it as a pecuniary speculation: he believes that it was published at
the expense of Chapman and Hall, not at Browning’s own cost....
Tuesday 24th.--Gabriel was engaged in the morning looking over and
finishing up his _Vita Nuova_.