Ford Madox Brown: Works on Paper and Archive Material at Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
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FORD MADOX BROWN: WORKS ON PAPER AND ARCHIVE MATERIAL AT BIRMINGHAM MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERY VOLUME ONE: TEXT by LAURA MacCULLOCH A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History of Art College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham September 2009 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This collaborative thesis focuses on the extensive collection of works on paper and related objects by Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) held at Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BMAG). It is the first academic study to use Brown's works on paper as the basis for discussion. In doing so it seeks to throw light on neglected areas of his work and to highlight the potential of prints and drawings as subjects for scholarly research. The thesis comprises a complete catalogue of the works on paper by Brown held at BMAG and three discursive chapters exploring the strengths of the collection. Chapter one focuses on the significant number of literary and religious works Brown made in Paris between 1841 and 1844 and examines his position in the cross-cultural dialogues taking place in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Chapter two uses the dual definition of the word 'construction' to examine how his interpretation of history was affected by contemporary changes in historiography, and to discuss his practical approach to composing a history painting. Chapter 3 studies illustrations he made for publication. Progressing chronologically, it explores his changing attitude towards illustration as a medium and argues that these works had increasing importance for his artistic career. The catalogue is the most up-to-date and informative inventory of the collection and includes new identifications, titles and dates and exegeses. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am extremely grateful to many people who have supported me whilst writing this thesis with their enthusiasm and willingness to share their knowledge. I would very much like to thank my academic supervisor Dr Paul Spencer-Longhurst whose knowledge and insight have remained an inspiration throughout both my MPhil and PhD. His guidance, encouragement and patience, have sustained me through this journey. My thanks also go to Tessa Sidey, my supervisor at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery who gave me the unique opportunity to co-curate the exhibition Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite and have my work published in the accompanying catalogue, allowing my research to reach a far greater audience than is usual for a PhD student. I would like to thank Angela Thirlwell whose unwavering enthusiasm for Ford Madox Brown, willingness to share the fruits of her own research and act as a sounding board have been not only inspirational but also greatly encouraging. I am also truly grateful to Professor Tim Barringer and Peter Raissis for the interest and enthusiasm they showed in my project which has spurred me on and taught me to have faith in myself. Many thanks are also due to the staff of the History of Art department at the University of Birmingham for nurturing my love of History of Art and supporting me through my studies. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Richard Clay, my academic mentor, for his positive attitude and sound advice, Dr Jutta Vincent for offering advice and guidance when writing about Brown's early migrant life and Professor Shearer West who, with Tessa Sidey, got the project off the ground. Over the last four years I have received friendship and support from a large number of people at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for which I am extremely grateful. Among these Lucy Blakeman, Caroline Villiers-Stuart, Varshali Patel, Michelle Beacham and Dave Rowan have celebrated the highs and supported me through the lows of writing this thesis. I would also like to thank the staff of the Barber Institute for their encouragement over many years. I am very grateful to John Van Boolen for giving me the opportunity to gain experience handling paintings and his willingness to answer my never-ending questions. My thanks also go to Gill Hill and John Ashford for generously giving up their time to print the illustrations for thesis. During my research I have encountered several curators and independent art historians who have offered support and knowledge for which I am very thankful. In particular I wish to thank Alex Kidson, Dennis Lanigan, Melva Croal, Betty Elzea, Charles Nugent, Professor Paul Goldman and Christine Hopper. I have visited many institutions whose staff have been immensely helpful including those working at the British Library, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the National Art Library, the V&A, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, the Princeton University Library, and the Yale University Library. I am deeply indebted to the Yale Centre for British Art who funded my Pre-Doctoral Fellowship and to its staff who ensured that my time there as both enjoyable and productive. I extremely grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council without whose financial assistance I would not have been able to undertake or complete this collaborative PhD. I would like to thank Connie Wan, Val Loggie and Sue Tungate for sharing the collaborative experience with me and Dr Camilla Smith, Dr Elisa Korb, Dr Jenny Powell and Dr Katie Wright whose friendship and pearls of wisdom have provided me with motivation and delight over many years. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love and support, and to whom I dedicate this thesis. VOLUME ONE: TEXT CONTENTS Abbreviations page 1 Introduction page 2 Chapter 1 Cross-currents: Drawings made in Paris page 20 Chapter 2 Fleshing out Time: Ford Madox Brown's Construction of English History 1843-1878 page 77 Chapter 3 Forgotten Images: The Illustrations of Ford Madox Brown page 140 Ford Madox Brown: Catalogue of Drawings, Prints, Designs, Watercolours and Archive Material at Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery page 195 Conclusion page 301 Appendix Down Stream by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, published in The Dark Blue, vol. 2, October 1871 page 308 Bibliography page 309 VOLUME ONE ABBREVIATIONS The following organisations have been abbreviated in the text: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery - BMAG Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - PRB Royal Academy of Arts, London - RA Victoria and Albert Museum, London - V & A 1 INTRODUCTION Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) is a painter most often associated with, but not an official member of, the PRB, a group of young artists which radically changed British Art in the nineteenth century. The interest in Brown's connections with the PRB has somewhat overshadowed his continental upbringing and earlier artistic achievements. This thesis is the first to focus on the extensive collection of works on paper by Brown held at BMAG. It is the largest collection of Brown's work and includes drawings, illustrations, engraved wood-blocks and archival material allowing a unique insight into his career of which few scholars have previously taken advantage. This thesis is the result of a three-year collaboration between Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and The University of Birmingham. The project has combined both academic and curatorial training and has already resulted in the exhibition Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite and the accompanying catalogue.1 The practical aspect of this PhD programme has substantially shaped the thesis which comprises a complete catalogue of the works on paper by Brown and related material held at BMAG and three discursive chapters exploring the strengths of this collection. The majority of the works on paper by Brown entered Birmingham's collection in 1906. They were included in the second set of Pre-Raphaelite drawings to be given by 'a group of Birmingham subscribers, led by the solicitor James Richardson Holliday' in a two-phase donation.'2 These works on paper originally belonged to 1 The exhibition was held at BMAG from 24 August to 14 December, 2008. Ford Madox Brown: the Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite, exh. cat., BMAG, 2008. 2 Tessa Sidey, 'Charles Fairfax Murray, J. R. Holliday and the Birmingham Collection of Millais Drawings,' in John Everett Millais: Illustrator and Narrator, exh. cat., BMAG, 2004, p. 49. 2 Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), an artist in his own right, who entered the Pre- Raphaelite circle in 1866 as Edward Burne-Jones' (1833-1898) first studio assistant. From the 1880s, 'when prices were low,' he began collecting Pre-Raphaelite drawings.3 He purchased them from the main auction houses and dealers in London and later on from studio sales after the artist's death. He occasionally acquired from the artists themselves, often in exchange for illuminated manuscripts which he bought and sold along with works by the old masters.4 As with the other Pre-Raphaelites, when it came to selecting works by Brown, Fairfax Murray did not weed out drawings for the most famous paintings or select the most well-drawn. He appears to have applied Ruskin's principle of 'rejecting nothing, selecting nothing,' to his purchasing, thus creating an unusually rich and diverse collection highlighting Brown's early career and his working practice from loose compositional sketches to finished cartoons.