A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/115632 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications Before and Beyond the Glass: Women and Their Mirrors in the Literature and Art of Nineteenth- century Britain Maria-Silvia Cohut Supervisors: Prof. Emma Mason Prof. Michael Hatt Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Warwick Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies November 2018 1 CONTENTS Declaration ..................................................................................................................... 3 Thesis Abstract ............................................................................................................... 4 List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 5 Introduction: The Company of Mirrors ......................................................................... 8 ‘Shadows of the World’: The Woman and Mirror-reflections in ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and Its Pictorial Representations ……………….…………………………………… 52 The Optical Triangle: Women between Mirrors in Pre-Raphaelite Art ..................... 115 ‘A Thing Much to Wonder On’: The Portrait as Mirror in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century .................................................................................................... 168 Final Remarks ............................................................................................................ 205 Appendix .................................................................................................................... 214 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 253 2 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for a degree at another university. No part of this thesis has been published elsewhere. 3 THESIS ABSTRACT This thesis explores the interplay between reflective objects (mirrors, mirror-like surfaces, but also representational media such as painted portraits) and female figures in nineteenth-century British literature and visual art. The theme of the woman with or at the mirror is a persistent presence in art and literature throughout the nineteenth century, as in Alfred Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and its pictorial interpretations, Pre- Raphaelite and Neo-Pre-Raphaelite depictions of ‘woman with / at the mirror’. This interplay is here considered as a significant cultural phenomenon. The thesis argues that an engagement with its expressions can help us understand the aesthetic and social means of negotiating female identity in this period. The overall argument is that the various interpretations of the ‘woman / reflective object’ juxtaposition throughout the nineteenth-century self-consciously use the reflective objects as a means of engaging with a traditional dichotomous understanding of femininity and of questioning its validity. In the period under scrutiny, the mirror appears as a symbol of the knowledge and development of feminine identity, as it alternately reveals or conceals the self and/or reflects the world to which the self is tied. Additionally, the mirror often creates an intimate space for femininity, opening up to the woman, but guarding against the intrusion of an external viewer by refracting his or her gaze. These readings are made in light of the historical importance of the mirror as a household object, especially in considering its role within the female sphere. What emerges from the consistent juxtaposition between women and mirrors in nineteenth-century British imagination is the beginning of a cultural dialogue about notions of womanhood: female figures are shown increasingly not just as ‘either/or’ entities (angels or demons, Magdalens or Madonnas), but potentially as ‘both/and’ (both angel and demon, virgin and whore). 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Advertisement in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine vols. 5-6 Figure 2 William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott, 1857, wood engraving Figure 3 William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott, c. 1886-1905, oil on canvas Figure 4 William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott, 1850, pen, Indian and brown ink, and wash Figure 5 William Holman Hunt, Study for the head piece to the ‘Lady of Shalott’: the Lady weaving, with separate studies for the architecture reflected in the mirror [detail], c. 1856, pen and brown ink on blue-green paper Figure 6 William Holman Hunt, Study for the headpiece to ‘The Lady of Shalott’: the Lady, weaving, regards herself in the mirror, c. 1856, pen and brown ink Figure 7 William Holman Hunt, Studies for the headpiece to ‘The Lady of Shalott’: the Lady weaving, c. 1856, pen and brown ink on blue-green paper Figure 8 William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, 1853-1854, oil on canvas Figure 9 John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (Looking at Lancelot), 1894, oil on canvas Figure 10 John William Waterhouse, I Am Half Sick of Shadows, 1915, oil on canvas Figure 11 John William Waterhouse, Study for ‘The Lady of Shalott’, date unknown, oil on canvas Figure 12 John William Waterhouse, Study for ‘The Lady of Shalott’, c. 1894, oil on canvas 5 Figure 13 John William Waterhouse, Study for ‘I am half sick of shadows, said the Lady of Shalott’, date unknown, pen on paper Figure 14 John William Waterhouse, Destiny, 1900, oil on canvas Figure 15 Henry Darvall, The Lady of Shalott, 1848-1851, oil on canvas Figure 16 Sidney Harold Meteyard, I Am Half Sick of Shadows, 1913, oil on canvas Figure 17 Elizabeth Siddall, The Lady of Shalott, 1853, pen, ink, and pencil on paper. Figure 18 Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak Figure 19 Simon Vouet, Allegory of Prudence, c. 1645, oil on canvas Figure 20 Edward Burne-Jones, Fair Rosamund and Queen Eleanor, 1862, ink, watercolour, gouache and gum on paper Figure 21 William Holman Hunt, Il Dolce far Niente, 1859-1866, 1874-1875, oil on canvas Figure 22 William Holman Hunt, Portrait of Fanny Holman Hunt, 1866-1868, oil on canvas Figure 23 John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Thoughts of the Past, 1858-1859, oil on canvas Figure 24 John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Study for Thoughts of the Past, c. 1859, pen and ink on paper Figure 25 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lucrezia Borgia, 1860-1861, graphite and watercolour on paper Figure 26 Ford Madox Brown, Take Your Son, Sir!, 1856-1857, oil on canvas 6 Figure 27 Henry Treffry Dunn, Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Theodore Watts-Dunton, 1882, gouache and watercolour on paper now on card Figure 28 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Venus surrounded by mirrors reflecting her in different views’, c. 1863, pen and ink on handmade paper Figure 29 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith, 1866-1868, 1872-1873, oil on canvas Figure 30 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Fazio’s Mistress (Aurelia), 1863-1873, oil paint on mahogany Figure 31 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Woman Combing Her Hair, 1864, watercolour Figure 32 Giovanni Bellini, Woman with a Mirror, oil on canvas Figure 33 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Risen at Dawn, or Gretchen Discovering the Jewels, 1868, coloured chalks Figure 34 Edward Burne-Jones, The Mirror of Venus, 1877, watercolour Figure 35 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Love’s Mirror, or A Parable of Love, 1850-1852, black pen and ink over pencil, with ink wash, on paper Figure 36 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Giorgione Painting, 1853, pen and white ink with ink wash on paper Figure 37 Simeon Solomon, The Painter’s Pleasaunce, 1861, watercolour and bodycolour with scratching-out on paper Figure 38 Simeon Solomon, The Painter’s Pleasaunce, c. 1862, watercolour on paper Figure 39 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Artist’s Studio, c. 1849, pen and ink on wove paper 7 INTRODUCTION: THE COMPANY OF MIRRORS Time and again in European cultures women have been shown in the company of mirrors. Throughout the ages, this iconography has borne various culturally and historically determined valences, as symbols of vanity, tools of feminine magic, or as portals to a strange world. Mirrors in particular and reflective surfaces (such as bodies of water) in general are intuitively linked with the concept of identity, with recognising and scrutinising the self, with separating one’s self from others’ and from its surroundings, and with the ongoing creation of self-image. Its relationship with women, specifically, is interesting in the context of how femininity has been construed and constructed throughout the ages. In the literature and visual art of nineteenth-century Britain, the conjunction between women and mirrors is particularly prominent to the detriment of the ‘man at the mirror’ image, which appears much more rarely. Across genres and media, female figures are in this period closely associated with mirrors or mirror proxies, from Alfred Tennyson’s famous poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and its numerous contemporary pictorial adaptations (William Holman Hunt’s, Sidney Meteyard’s, and later John William Waterhouse’s being the best known) to the literary and pictorial works of the Pre-Raphaelites and their circle. Although there are few