Miss Muriel Foster: the John William Waterhouse Model

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

MISS MURIEL FOSTER: THE JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE MODEL James K. Baker and Cathy L. Baker She has been called the “unknown model” or the “mysterious model” even though original portrayals of her of considerable value hang in private collections and in major museums and galleries around the world. Moreover, colourful reproductions grace homeowner’s walls and pages of books by the tens of thousands, but who among viewers who admire her beauty know her name? “Who was she?” Christopher Wood asked in 1981: “One cannot help speculating about the identity of the mysterious and beautiful model who reappears so often in ... Waterhouse’s pictures.... It remains one of the few Pre-Raphaelite mysteries, and one that will probably never be solved” (148). The Royal Academy of Arts, London, owns one of the most famous and most viewed paintings of her, Waterhouse’s 1901 Diploma Picture A Mermaid (fig. 1), prominently displayed for nearly a century and admired by millions. The Academy didn’t know her name. We asked, and we searched through their archives, and we made inquiries of other galleries and museums and other Waterhouse researchers but only two we could find knew. The name of the favourite sitter of John William Waterhouse from 1893 to beyond the turn of the century is “Miss Muriel Foster,” known only by name from a single inscription on a 4.75 x 4.5-inch pencil sketch for Waterhouse’s 1905 Lamia (fig. 2). A reference to the sketch is found in a 1966 auction catalogue of Mr. Charles Ede of Folio Fine Art Ltd., London (Hobson, Art , 197). It was fortunate that Waterhouse inscribed the name of his favourite model of many paintings over many years on that one drawing, perhaps only as an afterthought, as no other notation of her name--or the names of any of his models--is known on any other of Waterhouse’s many works. The current location of the sketch is unknown. It was listed as “A Portrait Study of a Girl” auctioned to a Mr. J.A.C. Nicholl in lot 8 as one of twenty-one studies of “Heads of Girls.” This was in the 23 July 1926 Christie’s sale of “The Remaining Works of the late J.W. Waterhouse, Esq. R.A.” Subsequently, Charles The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 8 (Fall 1999).

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Pre-Raphaelites. an Extraordinary Exhibition in Milan
Ressort: Kunst, Kultur und Musik Pre-Raphaelites. An extraordinary Exhibition in Milan Rome/Milan, 05.06.2019 [ENA] In 1848, political and social revolutions involving almost all nations break out in Europe. In England, seven students joined to produce an artistic revolution: freeing British painting from conventions and dependence on old masters. The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The men and women of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) experienced new beliefs, new lifestyles and personal relationships, as radical as their art. Their splendid paintings will be on exhibition for the first time in Milan thanks to the extraordinary collaboration project between Palazzo Reale Milan and Tate Britain.The exhibition “Preraffaelliti. Amore e desiderio” (Pre-Raphaelites. Love and desire ), promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Culture, Palazzo Reale and 24 ORE Cultura-Gruppo 24 ORE is organized in collaboration with Tate and curated by Carol Jacobi, Curator British Art of the London museum. Maria Teresa Benedetti’s scientific contribution highlited the relationship of the Pre-Raphaelites with Italy. It will thus be possible to admire about 80 works in Milan, together with some iconic paintings difficult to see outside of the UK, such as the Ophelia by John Everett Millais, The Awakening of Consciousness by William Holman Hunt, Love of April by Arthur Hughes, the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse.The Palazzo Reale exhibition, open to the public from 19 June to 6 October 2019, reveals the universe of art and values of the 18 pre-Raphaelite artists.
[Show full text]
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) Had Only Seven Members but Influenced Many Other Artists
1 • Of course, their patrons, largely the middle-class themselves form different groups and each member of the PRB appealed to different types of buyers but together they created a stronger brand. In fact, they differed from a boy band as they created works that were bought independently. As well as their overall PRB brand each created an individual brand (sub-cognitive branding) that convinced the buyer they were making a wise investment. • Millais could be trusted as he was a born artist, an honest Englishman and made an ARA in 1853 and later RA (and President just before he died). • Hunt could be trusted as an investment as he was serious, had religious convictions and worked hard at everything he did. • Rossetti was a typical unreliable Romantic image of the artist so buying one of his paintings was a wise investment as you were buying the work of a ‘real artist’. 2 • The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) had only seven members but influenced many other artists. • Those most closely associated with the PRB were Ford Madox Brown (who was seven years older), Elizabeth Siddal (who died in 1862) and Walter Deverell (who died in 1854). • Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris were about five years younger. They met at Oxford and were influenced by Rossetti. I will discuss them more fully when I cover the Arts & Crafts Movement. • There were many other artists influenced by the PRB including, • John Brett, who was influenced by John Ruskin, • Arthur Hughes, a successful artist best known for April Love, • Henry Wallis, an artist who is best known for The Death of Chatterton (1856) and The Stonebreaker (1858), • William Dyce, who influenced the Pre-Raphaelites and whose Pegwell Bay is untypical but the most Pre-Raphaelite in style of his works.
[Show full text]
Movimiento Prerrafaelista
06/02/2007 1845 MOVIMIENTO PRERRAFAELISTA: ORÍGENES, DESARROLLO 1870 Y CONSECUENCIAS 1894 Sir John Everett Millais. John Ruskin. 1854 jamp'07 1 jamp'07 2 ALGUNAS OBRAS: Modern Painters (1843) Modern Painters II (1846) The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) Pre-Raphaelitism (1851) The Stones of Venice I (1851) The Stones of Venice II and III (1853) Architecture and Painting (1854) Modern Painters III (1856) The Harbours of England (1856) Political Economy of Art (1857) The Two Paths (1859) The Elements of Perspective (1859) Modern Painters IV (1860) RAFAEL (1483-1520): La Unto This Last (1862) Transfiguración 1518-20 jamp'07 3 jamp'07 4 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was created in 1848 by seven artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, Thomas Woolner and William Holman Hunt. Their goal was to develop a naturalistic style of art, throwing The Pre-Pre-RaphaeliteRaphaelite away the rules and conventions that were drilled into students' BrotherhoodBrotherhood:: heads at the Academies. Raphael was the artist they considered to have achieved the highest degree of perfection, PRB so muchthttdth so that students were encourage dtdfd to draw from his examples rather than from nature itself; thus they became the "Pre-Raphaelites". The movement itself did not last past the 1850s, but the style remained popular for decades, influencing the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Symbolist painters and the Art Nouveau jamp'07 5 jamp'07 6 1 06/02/2007 El planteamiento inicial de
[Show full text]
GENDER STUDIES 19(1)/2020 1 10.2478/Genst-2021-0001
GENDER STUDIES 19(1)/2020 10.2478/genst-2021-0001 SISTERS OF INSPIRATION. FROM SHAKESPEAREAN HEROINE TO PRE-RAPHAELITE MUSE DANA PERCEC West University of Timișoara [email protected] Abstract: The paper aims to make a connection between the female models of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the portrayal of Shakespearean heroines, given that the 19th-century school of painting was using the Bard not only as a source of legitimation and authority, but also as a source of displacement, tackling apparently universal and literary subjects that were in fact disturbing for the Victorian sensibilities, such as love and eroticism, neurosis and madness, or suicide. As more recent scholarship has revealed, the women behind the Brotherhood, while posing as passive and contemplative, objects on display for the public gaze, had more agency and mobility than the average Victorian women. Keywords: Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, female models, Victorian sensibilities, Shakespearean heroines, sisterhood. 1. Introduction The Pre-Raphaelite movement has received a lot of critical attention both in artistic terms and in terms of the literary sources of inspiration this school of painting used. The founders, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt were members of the same generation of young imaginative artists, but even half a century after the first PRB exhibition in 1848, a late Pre-Raphaelite like John William Waterhouse had the same technical and aesthetic approach. Escapist and nostalgic, the Pre-Raphaelite painting favours medieval settings, Biblical or mythological themes, lavish costumes and vivid colours. Above all, it brings to the forefront the female subject: beautiful young women in a melancholy pose, enigmatic and inactive, statuesque and aloof.
[Show full text]
Sleeping Beauties in Representations of Antiquity and Their Reception (1860-1900) Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada
Beneath the Surface: Sleeping Beauties in Representations of Antiquity and their Reception (1860-1900) Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada To cite this version: Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada. Beneath the Surface: Sleeping Beauties in Representations of An- tiquity and their Reception (1860-1900). Béatrice Laurent. Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britian: Cultural, Literary and Artistic Explorations of a Myth, Peter Lang, 2014, 303431745X. hal-02093331 HAL Id: hal-02093331 https://hal-normandie-univ.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02093331 Submitted on 8 Apr 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. 1 Beneath the Surface: Sleeping Beauties in Representations of Antiquity and their Reception (1860- 1900) Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada British painting in the mid 1860s saw a prominent renewal of paintings of Antiquity that was to last until the early twentieth century. The painters concerned have sometimes been referred to as ‘Olympians’, ‘Neoclassical’ or ‘Parnassians’1 because of their academicism, their return to classic forms and their promotion of
[Show full text]
Hylas and the Matinée Girl: John William Waterhouse and the Female Gaze
Hylas and the Matinée Girl: John William Waterhouse and the Female Gaze Jennifer Bates Ehlert British painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), One trend was the emergence of the female gaze during is best known for paintings of beguiling women, such as The the late nineteenth century, a gaze which is evident in paint- Lady of Shalott and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Dedicated to the ings such as Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896, The Awakening power and vulnerability of the female form, he demonstrated of Adonis, 1900, and Echo and Narcissus, 1903 (see Figures the Victorian predilection for revering and fearing the feminine. 1 and 2). These paintings could be read as commentary on Often categorized as a Pre-Raphaelite or a Classical Academy the rise of the male figure as a spectacle and the impact of painter, Waterhouse was enamored of femme fatales and tragic the female gaze. Specifically, this paper correlates the actions damsels, earning him a reputation as a painter of women. and gaze of the nymphs in Hylas and the Nymphs to that Nonetheless, the men in Waterhouse’s art warrant scholarly of the matinée girl. Matinée girls, a late nineteenth-century attention and their time is due. Simon Goldhill’s article, “The social phenomena, discomfited theater audiences with their Art of Reception: J.W. Waterhouse and the Painting of Desire freedom and open admiration of actors. in Victorian Britain,” recognizes the significance of the male Although Waterhouse’s artworks have and do lend subject in Waterhouse’s oeuvre, writing, “His classical pictures themselves to discussions within the realm of queer gaze and in particular show a fascinating engagement with the position theory, it is purposefully avoided because the focus here is of the male subject of desire, which has been largely ignored in the rarely discussed female gaze.
[Show full text]
Press Release Pre-Raphaelites on Paper, Leighton House Museum
PRESS RELEASE Pre-Raphaelites on Paper: Victorian Drawings from the Lanigan Collection An exhibition at Leighton House Museum organised by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa 12 Feb 2016 – 29 May 2016 Press Preview 11 Feb 2016 Pre-Raphaelites on Paper: Victorian Drawings from the Lanigan Collection will be the first exhibition opening at Leighton House Museum in 2016, presenting an exceptional, privately- assembled collection to the UK public for the first time. Featuring over 100 drawings and sketches by the Pre- Raphaelites and their contemporaries, the exhibition is organised by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). It expresses the richness and flair of British draftsmanship during the Victorian era displayed in the unique setting of the opulent home and studio of artist and President of the Royal Academy (PRA) Frederic, Lord Leighton. From preparatory sketches to highly finished drawings intended as works of art in themselves, visitors will discover the diverse ways that Victorian artists used drawing to further their artistic practice, creating, as they did so, images of great beauty and accomplishment. Portraits, landscapes, allegories and scenes from religious and literary works are all represented in the exhibition including studies for some of the most well-known paintings of the era such as Edward Burne- Jones’ The Wheel of Fortune (1883), Holman Hunt’s Eve of St Agnes (1848) and Leighton’s Cymon and Iphigenia (1884). With the exception of Leighton’s painting studio, the permanent collection will be cleared from Leighton House and the drawings hung throughout the historic interiors. This outstanding collection, brought together over a 30-year period by Canadian Dr.
[Show full text]
Realismus – Impressionismus – Symbolismus
Realismus – Impressionismus – Symbolismus Wintersemester 2018/2019 9. Vorlesung 24.01.2019 •Barringer, Timothy J. [Hrsg.]: Pre-Raphaelites. Victorian Avant-Garde, London 2012. •Hönnighausen, Gisela [Hrsg.]: Die Präraffaeliten. Dichtung, Malerei, Ästhetik, Rezeption. Stuttgart 2000. •Kemp, Wolfgang: John Ruskin. Leben und Werk, München [u.a.] 1993. •Waggoner, Diane: The Pre-Raphaelite lens. British photography and painting, 1848 – 1875, Washington 2010. Presenting the female body: Challenging a Victorian fantasy John William Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896, Manchester „Our removal of Waterhouse’s naked nymphs painting ‘Members of the public have stuck Post-it notes on the wall giving was art in action“ – Sonia Boyce their reaction.’ Photograph: Manchester Art Gallery Triumphe der Kunst über die Realität? Edward Burne-Jones, left, with William Morris at the Grange, Ramsgate, in 1874. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London Laus Veneris (In Praise of Venus) by Sir Edward Coley Burne- Jones, Bt ARA. 1873-75. Oil on canvas, 47 x 71 inches. The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon- Tyne. Study for Laus, Veneris, Sir Edward Variant Study for Head of the Queen Coley Burne-Jones, Bt ARA (1833- in Laus Veneris - Sir Edward Burne- 1898), Pencil,8 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches Jones St. Cecilia window by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, installed 1903. Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt 1833–1898, King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, Oil paint on canvas, 293,4 x 135,9 cm, London: Tate Gallery Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), Georgiana Burne-Jones, their children Margaret and Philip in the background, 1883, oil on canvas, 76 x53 cm, Source: Sotheby's Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), Phyllis and Demophoon, 1870, Bodycolour and watercolour with gold medium and gum arabic on composit layers of paper on canvas, 93,8 x 47, 5 cm, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
[Show full text]
Gothic Glory at Christie's
For Immediate Release 16 January 2007 Contact: Matthew Paton 020.7389.2664 [email protected] GOTHIC GLORY AT CHRISTIE’S - CHRISTOPHER WOOD COLLECTION TO BE OFFERED IN FEBRUARY 2007 Christopher Wood: A Very Victorian Eye 28 February 2007, King Street King Street – Christie’s is pleased to announce a single-owner sale of drawings, paintings and decorative arts from the collection of renowned dealer and scholar Christopher Wood. Christopher Wood: A Very Victorian Eye will offer approximately 300 lots with individual estimates ranging from £500 to £100,000, with no reserve on lots estimated at £1,000 and below, and will be available through the innovative live bidding system Christie’s LIVE™ offering collectors and enthusiasts around the world the opportunity to bid while enjoying the look, sound and feel of the sale from their personal computer. The auction will include works of art by some of the most significant artists of the 19th century including Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, John Atkinson Grimshaw, Frederic, Lord Leighton, Sir John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John William Waterhouse and is expected to realise in the region of £1 million. Martin Beisly, Senior Director, and Harriet Drummond and Peter Brown, Directors of Christie’s, comment: ‘It is a great privilege to offer at auction the collection of Christopher Wood, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading scholars and dealers of Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite art. This auction will present an exceptional opportunity to potential buyers by offering a selection of paintings, drawings and objects acquired by Christopher over a number of years, all of which illustrate his discerning and distinctive eye.
[Show full text]
Sleep, Sickness, and Spirituality: Altered States and Victorian Visions of Femininity in British and American Art, 1850-1915
Sleep, Sickness, and Spirituality: Altered States and Victorian Visions of Femininity in British and American Art, 1850-1915 Kimberly E. Hereford A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Susan Casteras, Chair Paul Berger Stuart Lingo Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Art History ©Copyright 2015 Kimberly E. Hereford ii University of Washington Abstract Sleep, Sickness, and Spirituality: Altered States and Victorian Visions of Femininity in British and American Art, 1850-1915 Kimberly E. Hereford Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Susan Casteras Art History This dissertation examines representations in art of the Victorian woman in “altered states.” Though characterized in Victorian art in a number of ways, women are most commonly stereotyped as physically listless and mentally vacuous. The images examined show the Victorian female in a languid and at times reclining or supine pose in these representations. In addition, her demeanor implies both emotional and physical depletion, and there is both a pronounced abandonment of the physical and a collapsing effect, as if all mental faculties are withdrawing inward. Each chapter is dedicated to examining one of these distinct but interrelated types of femininity that flourished throughout British and American art from c. 1850 to c. 1910. The chapters for this dissertation are organized sequentially to demonstrate a selected progression of various states of consciousness, from the most obvious (the sleeping woman) to iii the more nuanced (the female Aesthete and the female medium). In each chapter, there is the visual perception of the Victorian woman as having access to otherworldly conditions of one form or another.
[Show full text]
Filozofická Fakulta Univerzity Palackého V Olomouci
Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Representations of Ophelia's Death in British Art Bakalářská práce Autor: Štěpánka Bublíková (Anglická - Francouzská filologie) Vedoucí práce: Mgr. David Livingstone Olomouc 2010 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně a uvedla úplný seznam citované a použité literatury. V Olomouci dne: 7.5.2010 .......................................................................... 2 I would like to express my thanks to my supervisor Mgr. David Livingstone for his professional help, patience, encouragement and resourceful comments that contributed to the successful completion of my work. I also would like to thank Norma Galley for her kindness, helpfulness and willingness to provide personal information. My thanks also belong to Zuzana Kašpárková, Filip Mravec and Jana Sochorová for their help and encouragement. Last but not the least, my thanks belong to Nathalie Vanfasse, my teacher at the Université de Provence in Aix-en Provence, France, whose stimulating courses of British painting were a great source of inspiration for me. 3 Contents Introduction ......................................................................................... 6 1. Text and its visual representation ............................................ 8 1.1 Images and texts .................................................................................... 8 "Image" definitions ......................................................................................
[Show full text]
Jw Waterhouse Pdf, Epub, Ebook
J. W. WATERHOUSE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Peter Trippi | 240 pages | 04 Mar 2005 | Phaidon Press Ltd | 9780714845180 | English | London, United Kingdom J. W. Waterhouse PDF Book Print it out using the 'Printable' view. That said, he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and served in this prestigious role from - Ophelia, of whom he produced several different depictions, is a good example of this, with the topic earlier covered by many members of the Brotherhood, most famously Millais. Some of the paintings got damaged. Gather Ye Rosebuds or Ophelia a study circa The Magic Circle The budding artist would return to Italy as his career took off. YP advertisers receive higher placement in the default ordering of search results and may appear in sponsored listings on the top, side, or bottom of the search results page. Tennyson, famously, features on multiple occassions with his literature of around 70 years earlier. In medieval times, a misreading of her Acts led to her connection with church music and when the Academy of Music was established at Rome in , she was adopted as its patroness. Namespaces Article Talk. Mariana in the South. Photographs: A selection of photos and illustrations of Waterhouse and his family. We accept cases Nationwide and offer many tax solutions. The Royal Academy, where he first learnt his trade, organised a retrospective of his career as recently as Here, I pay tribute to the man, my obsession, the master, with the presentation of over paintings, including many high resolution images, through out 5 decades of amazing accomplishments.
[Show full text]