women are nonetheless viewed within the context of the men who
painted them. There are exceptions, of course – Christina Rossetti,
for example, was not just a muse but a well-known poet in her own
right, whose memorable compositions include In the Bleak Midwinter
and the avant-garde Goblin Market. Yet for the most part, their
characters remain enigmatic, and it is this peculiar void that the
forthcoming exhibition attempts to address, by exploring the per-
sonalities behind these beautiful faces. Their appearance may have
been languid and wistful, but in reality they were a new breed of
women – emancipated, socially mobile and rebelling against the
Victorian conventions that shaped their world.
When John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William
Holman Hunt first formed the brotherhood in 1848, their aim was
to make studies from nature, and
‘ t o s y mp a t h i s e w i t h w h a t i s d i r e c t
and serious and heartfelt in pre-
vious art, to the exclusion of what
is conventional and self-parading
and learned by rote’. Drawing
inspiration from the mediaeval
era, as well as from the Romant-
icism of the preceding century,
they began searching for faces
that intrigued or impassioned
them. Not content to use the life
models who worked in art schools
or private studios, they cast their
net for girls Rossetti referred to
as ‘stunners’, enlisting relatives,
acquaintances, shop assist ants
and servants: the Jam aican model
Fanny Eaton, for instance, mod-
elled as a way of supplementing
her income as a charwoman. Her
dark skin and ‘very fine head and
fi g u r e ’, a s R o s s e t t i p u t i t i n a n 18 6 5
letter to Ford Madox Brown, pre-
sented a conspicuous contrast to
Victorian ideals of beauty, subverting expectations about black
women in society.
A more typical embodiment of the Pre-Raphaelite look comes in
the form of Lizzie Siddal, who is instantly recognisable for her mane
of flaming red hair. She was from a working-class background but
had ambitions to be an artist, and at 20, began modelling for Walter
Deverell and Holman Hunt. Her ability to hold difficult poses –
sometimes kneeling for hours at a time – was unparalleled, though
she was plagued by ill health throughout her short life; on one occa-
sion, she almost died after lying in a bath of freezing water for
Millais’s Ophelia. Yet while Siddal is often presented as a tragic
figure, suffering to facilitate great art, she clearly also possessed
Left: ‘Effie Ruskin’
(1851) by Thomas
Richmond. Below: ‘Effie
Millais’ (1853) by John
Everett Millais. Right:
Effie and John Everett
Millais with their
daughters Effie and
Mary, photographed in
1865 by Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson
(Lewis Carroll)Near right: Simeon
Solomon’s ‘Study for
the Mother of Moses’
(1859), featuring
Fanny Eaton. Far
right: Eaton in Albert
Moore’s ‘Mother of
Sisera’ (1861)