The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.]
W. HOLMAN-HUNT
Lord and Lady Napier and Frederick Lockwood—Visit the caverns beneath
Jerusalem—
Letter from D. G. Rossetti—Kaimil
Pasha—Sir Moses Montefiore—Duke of Brabant—
Visit
to the mosque—Max and the pistol—Contention with the bishop
concerning Arab
converts—Letter from Millais—Jerusalem
ladies come to see my picture—Send “Scape–
goat” to
England—Moonlight over the city. . . . . . . . . 1
An honest Jewish convert—Story of the mercer—Visit Levi's
house—The retribution—
“Selection” in
Art—Warder Cressen—Water–colour of
Gihon—Succumb to fever—
Visit the mosque—Send
pictures to Oxford—Journey to Nazareth, Tiberias, Lake of
Merom, and
Mount Hermon—Syrian landscape—Country between Tabor and
Tiberias—
Guide and Issa converse about my faith—Tents
pitched on burial–ground—Cholera
raging—Moonlight
on Tiberias—
Mukary refuses to stay—The spring
of Capernaum—
Safid—Graham departs westward. . . . . . . . .
. . 16
Plain of Merom—Issa is not appreciating the scene, feels his
superiority—Cæsarea Philippi—
Ancient
remains—Moslem boy lost—Hasbeya—Dar al
Akmar—Damascus—Consul–
General Sir Henry
Wood—Lady
Ellenborough—Zebedeen—Baalbec—Temple—A
primi–
tive hotel—Unconscious actor to delighted
audience—Ascend Lebanon—Zahle—Reach
Beyrout and
part with Issa—Take ship to Constantinople for the
Crimea—Cholera and
mutiny on board—Arrive at Crimea. . . .
. . . . . . 36
Marseilles to Paris—Mike Halliday—February
1856—Halliday and I take house together—
Disintegration fo
the Brotherhood—Rossetti in Oxford—Miss
Siddal—Christina
Rossetti's sonnet on the P.R.B.—Woolner's
return from Australia—Several artists
working on our
lines—Madox Brown steadfastly doing so—Annual prizes at
Liverpool—
Arthur Hughes—Millais and
Ruskin—Millais' marriage—Visit
Oxford—“Pot–boilers”—
Small
“Eve of St. Agnes” sold to Mr.
Miller—Gambart treats for copyright of “Light
of the World”—Copyright in
England and France—Ford Madox Brown paints direct
from
Nature—Exhbition in Charlotte Street—Illustrations to
Tennyson—Rossetti's
designs—The volume a commercial
failure—Menzel's work—“Scapegoat”—Millais brings
his picture
to London—Ruskin—John Luard's first picture—Millais'
“Peace” and
“Burning Leaves”—Gambart's strictures on
the “Scapegoat”—Criticisms
on the picture
in
The Times, etc.—Further comments in
the Press on P.R.B. picutres. . . 59
Leighton—Work at Claredon Press, Oxford—Thackerary stands for
Parliament—His visit
to Mr. Combe—Letters from
Millais—Mr. Combe persuades me to become a candidate
for R.A.
Associateship—Enrolled myself for winter
election—Watts—Miss Emma
Brandling—Little Holland
House—Woolner—Tennyson at
Roehampton—Tennyson
demurs to my illustrations—Robert and
Mrs. Browning—Death of my father—Seddon—
Take
Hook's house on Campden Hill—Lady Goderich's
dinner–party—Sir Colin Campbell
and
Carlyle—Woodward and the Oxford Museum—Decoration of the Union,
Oxford—
First meeting with Burne–Jones—Fitting up
my house at Kensington—Bachelor parties
at Henry Vaux's—The
Academy rejects me. . . . . . . . 86
The Hogarth Club—Leighton and a Royal Commission—Mrs. Combe and
Mrs. Collins—
Completion of my “Temple” pictures continually
delayed—Arthur Lewis's social
gatherings—Fred
Walker—Mr. and Mrs. George Grove and Mr. and Mrs.
Phillips—
Millais exhibits “Sir
Isumbras”—Tom Taylor's imitation of ancient
ballad—Ruskin's
denunciation of the picture—Charles Reade
buys it—Frederick Sandy's caricature—
Mr. and Mrs. Combe
visit Brown's studio—Letter from Brown about
Carlyle—Oxford
Museum—O'Shea—Manchester loan
exhibition—Conversation with Sir Thomas Fairbairn
about
Woolner—Woolner and his work—Rossetti avoids Millais and
myself—Ruskin's
appreciation of Rossetti's power—Mr. and
Mrs. Thoby Princep—Tennyson and
Thackeray—Remonstrances on
my “idleness” from unknown correspondents . . 111
Visit to Tennyson—His page boy—Distress at
critics—National support of Art—Millais’
early
genius—George Leslie delivers his father's dying message—G. F.
Watts—
Thornbury's criticism in the
Anthenæum on P.R.B.–ism—Mr. and Mrs. Combe
at
Oxford—St. Barnabas Church—University
Press—Conference on ways and means—Our
relations with
Dickens—Wilkie Collins—His room—Visit to Charles
Dickens in Tavistock
Square—The Duchess of Argyll—Sir C.
Eastlake—Gambart's treatment of my terms for
the “Temple” picture—It goes to
Windsor—Chat with Thackeray at Cosmopolitan
Club—Introduce
Woolner at Oxford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Breakfast with Gladstone—The Rev. Joseph Wolf—I discuss the
merit of Dresden china—
Walking tour in 1860 with Tennyson, Palgrave,
Woolner, and Val Prinsep—Gad's Hill—
Charles Collins marries
Kate Dickens, 1861—His views on the merits of a good
tailor—
Morris's business formed—Poynter's picture “Faithful unto Death”—Injury
from fire
to my “Temple”
picture—Portrait of Judge Lushington—His stories—1862
Exhibitition—
Prince Consort's death—Woolner. . . . . . . . .
. . 153
Jacob Omnium controversy in the
Times—Death of Augustus
Egg—Letter from Charles
Dickens—Visit to Sir Thomas
Fairbairn—Wingrove Cook—Conversation about
Thackeray—Trelawny—George Meredith—Proposal for
George Meredith to live with
D.G. Rosetti—Marriage of the Prince of
Wales—Visit to the Prince and Princess of
Wales to my
exhibition—Garibaldi's visit to England—Baron
Lys—Breakfast at the
Duchess of Argyll's—John Tupper as art
master—Royal Academy efforts to pacify
malcontents—G. F.
Watts. . . . . . . . . . . . 176
W. Beamont and St. Michael's, Cambridge—Delay in returning to the
East—My marriage—
“The
Festival of St. Swithin”—Fred Walker—My
bank stop payment—Start for the
East—Cholera prevailing at
Marseilles—Quarantine—Go to Florence—“Isabella and
the Pot of
Basil”—Death of my wife—Return to
England—The home of Charles
Dickens—My election to the
Athenæum Club—Return to Florence to complete my wife's
tomb—Meet Ruskin in Venice—Conversation with Ruskin. . . . . .
196
I visit Rome—Take ship at Naples for Syria—Commence “Shadow of Death”—Dar
Berruk
Dar—Bethlehem—The Crown Prince of
Prussia—Nazareth—Cana—Captain
Luard—
Ride to Jerusalem with news of Franco–German
War—Fever—Visit Pasha in
Armenian
church—Libeation of Ezaak—Finish my
picture—Visitors in vain—Paris after the
German
War—Picture arrives in London—Millais in vain urges me to put
down my
name again for the Academy—Commission from Queen
Victoria—Elizabeth Thompson—
Briton Rivière. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 219
Tissot—Charles Collin's death—My second marriage—We
travel to Jerusalem—Meeting with
Lieutenant
Kitchener—Trouble from non-arrival of cases—“The Ship”—The “Inno–
cents”—To
Ascalon—Go south to paint background—New studio—Visit
of the
Mahomedan ladies—Expedition to Jordan and Dead
Sea—Send family to take refuge in
Greek convent at Jaffa—I
remain in Jerusalem—After two and a half years return with
partly
finished painting—The Grosvenor Gallery—R. Browning and
Velasquez—Sir R.
Owen's portrait—“Amaryllis”—“Miss Flamborough”—Robert
Browning—His son—
Browning and D.G.
Rossetti—Visit to my old studio in Chelsea—Typhoid
fever—
Sir William Gull—Millais advises me to have the
picure relined—I buy a house at
Fulham—Ruskin's visit
there—His Oxford lecture—Abandon Jerusalem “Innocents”—
Recommence on new
canvas—Illness—Finish the picture—Exhibition of my
works at
“Fine Arts” Society. . . . . . . . . . . . .
249
Lawless—F. Walker—Philip Calderon—Walter
Crane—“The Triumph of the
Innocents”—
Acquired by
Liverpool—“Christ among the
Doctors”—D.G. Rossetti's
death—Articles
in
Contemporary—Address at
Rossetti's fountain—Madox
Brown—Whistler—H.
Herkomer—F.
Shields—Rev. E. Young—Rossetti's work—E.
Burne–Jones—Gilbert
and Sullivan's
Patience and those satirised—E. R. Hughes—Cecil
Lawson—John Brett—
“The Bride
of Bethlehem”—“Sorrow”—Millais made a
baronet—He talks of the early
P.R.B. days—Millais and I walk
to see Charles Keane—The Bishop's moat—Artist's
materials. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Commence “The Lady of
Shalott”—“May
Morning”—Last meeting with Mrs.
Combe—
Her death—Journey through Italy, Greece, Egypt to the
East—Illustrations to Sir Edwin
Arnold's
Light of the World—The Miracle of “Holy
Fire”—W. B. Scott's death—
Banquet at
Guildhall—Madox Brown's position—Leigton's
death—Millais’ death—
William Morris'
death—Burne–Jones' style—My portrait by W. B.
Richmond presented to
me—Last talk with Watts—The
University of Oxford bestows the degree of D.C.L. upon
me—King Edward
VII confers upon me the Order of Merit—Reflections on our
course
—Nationality in art—Foreign
art—Millais’ pictures—The sale room no test of
merit—
Educational activity injurious rather than beneficial to the
nation's art. . . . 308
W. Morris and Co.—William de Morgan—Controversy about
leadership of the P.R.B.—
W. Rossetti's sonnets in
The
Germ
—Monsieur Sizeranne's letter—Mr. Cook's
hand–
book—Extracts from William Rossetti—The
genesis of D.G. Rossetti's picture
“Found”
—“The Awakened
Conscience”—F.M. Brown's diary—The meaning
of the word
Pre-Raphaelite—F. G. Stephens, W. Sharp, W. Bell Scott. . .
. 335
The delusions of our interpreters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Art and its national quality—Journalism—Lord Leighton's
warning—Art the handmaid of
morality—Art is
love—Foreign academies—Impressionism—American
students in Paris—
Effect of civil wars on English art—The
rise of portrait painting in
England—Constable's
prophecy—“Bacchus and Ariadne”—Copyright
laws—What a people is led to admire,
that it will
become—Leonardo da Vinci speaks—Slavish idolatry not
reverence—The
great days of Italian art—Want of undersanding
leads to unrestrained utterances—
The responsibility of the
Press—The purpose of the art. . . . . . . . 358
Last Notes by the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
But whosoever chooseth the life to come and directeth his endeavour towards the same, being also a true believer, the endeavour of these shall be acceptable unto God. — Al Koran.
1While preparing a second edition I have come upon a letter of interest at this time from D. G. Rossetti, even more important than it seemed to be when it was received by me. I regret that the closing lines are missing; I give it not only for its contemporary news, but also for its bearing upon Gabriel's picture of “Found” and my picture of “The Awakened Conscience” —W. H. H.
30
th January, 1855.
Dear Hunt,—
I am quite ashamed in setting-to at this letter after so long a promise-breaking silence; but as I should be still more ashamed at seeing you again, and remembering your friendly letters, as the only ones which had passed between us, I bespeak a little very comparative content with myself by writing even thus late. I am beginning this at Albany Street where Christina, seeing the paper lying on the table and hearing of its destined use, has just charged me with a charge to you to bring home an alligator (an allegory on canvas not to be accounted a fair substitute), in which she proposes that a few of your select friends should be allowed to take shares, after which its sudden presentation to the Zoological Society should make the fortunate Joint Stock Company members for life of that dismayed Institution. This, she thinks, is a project of moderate promise and a great additional incentive to defer writing no longer.
One great reason for my not writing long before this has been the wish to have something worth saying to you of my own doings and plans, and this no doubt you have guessed. It is possible that Sisyphus, for the first few rolls of his stone, may have dwelt on the causes
of his failure at some length and vowed to do the trick yet; but one inclines to believe that the occupation soon became and continues chiefly a silent one.
Anxieties and infelicities, this sort among the rest—did not seem the best subjects to write about; but they have not prevented my enjoying the tardy justice done to you last year in your works—that is, in all quarters of any consequence, and remembering how we were together while you strove bitterly towards it, deserving it all the time in days that never come again.
I have no doubt that which you are doing now when seen, will bring to more than completeness the result which was more than begun last time, and feel very desirous to see your new works and have a first chance of learning what the East is really like. I can tell you, on my own side, of only one picture fairly begun—indeed, I may say, all things considered, rather advanced; but it is only a small one. The subject had been sometime designed before you left England and will be thought, by any one who sees it when (and if) finished, to follow in the wake of your “Awakened Conscience,” but not by yourself, as you know I had long had in view subjects taking the same direction as my present one. The picture represents a London street at dawn, with the lamps still lighted along a bridge which forms the distant background. A drover has left his cart standing in the middle of the road (in which, i. e. the cart, stands baa-ing a calf tied on its way to market), and has run a little way after a girl who has passed him, wandering in the streets. He has just come up with her and she, recognising him, has sunk under her shame upon her knees, against the wall of a raised churchyard in the foreground, while he stands holding her hands as he seized them, half in bewilderment and half guarding her from doing herself a hurt. These are the chief things in the picture which is to be called “Found,” and for which my sister Maria has found me a most lovely motto from Jeremiah: “I remember Thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals.” Is not this happily applicable? “Espousal,” I feel confident from knowledge of the two words in two or three languages would most probably be rightlier rendered “betrothal,” which is the word I want and shall substitute as soon as I have consulted some one knowing Hebrew. The calf, a white one, will be a beautiful and suggestive part of the thing, though I am far from having painted him as well as I hoped to do—perhaps through my having performed the feat, necessarily an open-air one, in the time just preceding Christmas, and also through the great difficulty of the net drawn over him; the motion constantly throwing one out—me especially, quite new as I was to any animal painting. I wish that if anything suggests itself to you which you think would advantage this subject, or any objection, you would let me know of it, though otherwise than for such a purpose I cannot expect to hear from you before doing this duty at least once again. I have not spoken of the subject at all to any of our circle except Brown, at whose house at Finchley I stayed while painting on it there, and Hughes, who happened to be painting at my rooms when I began it. Since Christmas I have been prevented from working on this picture by illness first, and since by having other things necessary to be done, but I hope soon to be on it again, though even were it ready in time I should have small thoughts, as yet, of sending it to any exhibition unless compelled. It was originally a commission from that fellow X., a subject which he chose himself from two or three I proposed to him; but he either is or professes himself too nearly ruined now to buy more pictures, so I suppose that chance is up. But it is no use writing about bothers of that kind.
The other day I had a visit from Moxon (at Millais’ kind suggestion I believe), asking me to do some of the woodcuts for the new Tennyson, on which I hear you are at work already. I can find few direct subjects left in the marked copy he has left me, and shall probably do “Vision of Sin,” “Palace of Art,” and things of that sort, if I get into the way of liking the task well enough to do them well; but I think illustrated editions of poets, however good (and this will be far from uniformly so), quite hateful things, and do not feel easy as an aider or abettor. I have just done one for Allingham's forthcoming volume, and know that were I a possessor of the book I should tear out the illustrations the first thing.
By the bye I have long had an idea for illustrating the last verse of “Lady of Shalott,” which I see marked to you. Is that a part you mean to do, and if not and you have only one design in prospect to the poem, could I do another? One of my occupations at present is a class on Monday evenings at the “College for Working Men,” got up by Maurice and others in Red Lion Square. Ruskin kindly came forward to teach drawing, but as his class only comprises foliage, etc., I have added a class for drawing the figure and have begun by setting the pupils—mostly real working-men carpenters, etc.—to draw heads from Nature, one of them sitting to the rest. Even already there are one or two of them doing really well. I draw there myself, and find that by far the most valuable part of my teaching—not only to me, but for them. I have (of course) one or two subjects which I hope to get immediately in hand as pictures. I have always feared to attempt a figure of Our Saviour, but if opportunity serves, hope to paint this year one which I have long wished, on the motto “Whose fan is in His hand.”
This letter is unbearably egotistical hitherto. Let me try if I have any news of friends, but I see few, and those seldom. Woolner seems, after all, to be disappointed of that commission, as perhaps you have heard from him. It is a pleasure to have him again here, but I suppose it cannot be for long. He talks of painting with me, so as to be able to portraitise on his return to Australia, both in paint and clay, and so be able to accept a larger number of commissions. This would, I should think, be a wise thing, and I have no doubt he would at once be perfectly successful in painting when he only began rightly. Brown has just added a little boy to his family; but I fear what would and ought to be a cause of congratulation, is only one of anxiety just now.
He is painting again on that picture of “Emigrants,” which is now far advanced, but fortune does not seem to turn yet. You heard perhaps of one result of his discouraged state some time back—his sending two pictures—“King Lear,” and a large landscape just then finished after many months’ work, to a wretched Jew shop-sale, where they fetched nearly the price of their frames. Of course, this injured him in more than one way. You are almost sure to have heard of X's attempt months ago to put up your “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” and a few more of his pictures to sale at Christie's when yours reached in real biddings £300, was run up ostensibly much beyond that by his touters in the room, but finally remained with him, not reaching though apparently approaching if I remember, his reserved price of £500, which was the one he put on it by my advice. I do not know whether he has since sold the picture, but at that time it returned with him to Ireland. Among deaths, you have perhaps heard that of another of our early “patrons,” Cottingham, who was one of the passengers lost in the Arctic last September; and of the end of poor North, at New York, by a quarter of an ounce of prussic-acid, of which there was a long account in the Daily News—you may see it one day, as Woolner has it. It is a subject one cannot talk of, and too hopelessly sad even to dwell much on the mind, however sincerely one regrets and pities him.
Brown talks of obtaining a country mastership in the School of Design, and I believe has lately taken some steps towards it.
D. G. Rosetti
KIAMIL PASHA WAS RE-APPOINTED GRAND VIZIER IN 1912
All the hurry and excitement of the R.A. is over, and yet I find myself delaying until it is absolutely necessary that I should tell you first that next month, please God, I shall be a married man. What think you of this? You must have partly expected this, and will not be knocked down by this sudden announcement. I have let the time slip by me so fast that I am at a loss what to tell you first....I have gone so far as to take a place near her family at Perth for the autumn, and I leave this in a fortnight's time, when to return I don’t know....Lear has been here just this moment telling me of your letter he has received. Collins also received one. When you come back, you must come and see me. I am afraid I shall not be in London to receive you when you arrive.... Apropos of work, my picture (“The Fireman”) this year has been blackguarded more than ever;
altogether the cabal is stronger than ever against every good thing—such injustice and felonious abomination has never been known before. Fancy A——, B——, and old Satyr C—— as hangers. Collins above the line is the Octagon, Martineau at the top of the Architectural...my picture against the door of the middle room. The very mentioning of these disgraceful facts incenses me so that I begin to tremble. I almost dropped down in a fit from rage in a row I had with the three hangers, in which I forgot all restraint and shook my fist in their faces, calling them every conceivable name of abuse. It is too long a story to relate now, but they wanted to lift my picture up, after I had got permission to have it lowered three inches, and tilted forward so that it might be seen, which was hardly the case as it was first hung. Oh! they are felons—no better than many a tethered convict—so let them pass. The Exhibition you will see, so there is no need of any mention of it. William I never see scarcely, as he lives down at Kingston. I am going to be married so quietly that none of my family come to the wedding. Good gracious, fancy me married, my old boy!...It is quite impossible to foresee the end of anything we undertake. Every day I see greater reason to be tolerant in judging others. We cannot reckon upon ourselves for the safe guidance of a single project. But I must not fill this letter with truisms....If I omit to tell you anything of interest you may afterwards find out, it will be from forgetfulness....Wilkie Collins is here and sends greeting. To-morrow is the Derby Day. Last Epsom I went too, we went together with Mike—you remember....My dear old friend, I feel the want of you more than ever, and art wants you home; it is impossible to fight single-handed, and the R.A. is too great a consideration to lose sight of, with all its position, and the public wealth and ability to help good art. When Lady Chantrey dies, the Academy will have funds at its disposal for the purchase yearly of the best living works, and all this should be in our hands. In my cont