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“My Spiritual Face”: A Newly Discovered Portrait of Mrs. Browning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

William S. Peterson
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Extract

The subject of many paintings, drawings, and photographs during the final years of her life, Elizabeth Barrett Browning never concealed her strong preference for the portrait by Field Talfourd done in Rome in 1859, which she described as her “spiritual face,” “rather a transfiguration than a literal likeness.” Robert Browning, with only slightly less enthusiasm, called it “the best in existence, perhaps.” Both Brownings distributed numerous photographic copies of it to friends and relatives; as late as 1873 Robert signalled his growing friendship with Mrs. Thomas FitzGerald by giving her a photograph of the Talfourd drawing. The portrait has been reproduced in countless books and articles about the Brownings and since 1871 has hung in the National Portrait Gallery in London. It is unquestionably the most famous likeness of Victorian England's most celebrated woman poet.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 5 , Spring 1977 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

NOTES

1. Learned Lady: Letters from Robert Browning to Mrs. Thomas FitzGerald 1876–1889, ed. McAleer, Edward C. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1966), p. 17.Google Scholar

I am pleased to record here my indebtedness to a number of individuals and institutions in the writing of this article (none of whom, of course, should be held responsible for the views I express). Mr. John Mason Rudolph, Jr., has given me substantial assistance in the research; his notes and suggestions have been extremely useful. My stylistic comparision of the two drawings owes much to a memorandum prepared by Dr. Joseph Francus. Mr. Richard Ormond, Deputy Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery, has provided invaluable advice and cooperation. Others who have rendered assistance include Mrs. Virginia Surtees, Mr. Philip Kelley, and Mrs. Betty Coley (Librarian of the Armstrong Browning Library). A number of unpublished letters are quoted with permission from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection (the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations), the British Library, the National Portrait Gallery (hereafter cited as the NPG), and The Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation, Inc., on behalf of The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.

One small explanation: in the color frontispiece the foxing mentioned in the article has been removed by photographic retouching; the foxing has been retained in the black and white photograph of the portrait accompanying the article.

2. The most accurate description of the NPG version is in Ormond, Richard, Early Victorian Portraits (London: HMSO, 1973), I, 68–69.Google Scholar

3. For example, Kate Field speaks of her “large brown eyes” (“Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” Atlantic Monthly, 8 [09 1861], 370).Google Scholar

4. The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 1845–1846, ed. Kintner, Elvan (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), II, 678, 705, 707. Here and elsewhere in the article the groups of two and three periods in Mrs. Browning's letters are her punctuation. My ellipses in her letters are placed within brackets.Google Scholar

5. The fullest biographical account, upon which I have drawn heavily, is in Sublime and Instructive: Letters from John Ruskin to Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, Anna Blunden and Ellen Heaton, ed. Surtees, Virginia (London: Michael Joseph, 1972), pp. 140–254Google Scholar. (Cited hereafter as Surtees.) A substantial collection of Miss Heaton's correspondence, including a number of letters from the Brownings, was sold at Christie's on 16 July 1969 (Lots 110–18); the letters from Robert Browning are now in the Pforzheimer Library.

6. Aurora Leigh's Dismissal of Romney was for many years mistakenly titled The Tryst: see Mander, Rosalie, “‘The Tryst’ Unravelled,” Apollo, 79 (1964), 221–23.Google Scholar

7. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Letters to Her Sister, 1846–1859, ed. Huxley, Leonard (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 303. (Cited hereafter as Huxley.)Google Scholar

8. Bridell-Fox, E. F., “Robert Browning,” Argosy, 49 (02 1890), 113Google Scholar; MS letter, EBB to Arabel Barrett, 24 Dec. 1859 (Berg Collection). The present location of this drawing is unknown: it was sold at Sotheby's on 12 Mar. 1951.

9. Letters of the Brownings to George Barrett, ed. Landis, Paul and Freeman, Ronald E. (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1958), pp. 223–24.Google Scholar

10. Dearest Isa: Robert Browning's Letters to Isabella Blagden, ed. McAleer, Edward C. (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1951), p. 35.Google Scholar

11. Letter dated ca. 1 Feb. 1859, Kenyon typescript (British Library Add. MS. 42231, fol. 146); quoted in part in Surtees, p. 260.

12. On the Gordigiani painting, see Ormond, , Early Victorian Portraits, I, 67.Google Scholar

13. Griffin, W. Hall and Minchin, Harry C., The Life of Robert Browning, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1938), p. 81Google Scholar. For a brief account of Talfourd's career, see Johnston, Eliza L., “Talfourd—the Artist of the Brownings,” Scribner's Magazine, 66 (09 1919), 381–84.Google Scholar

14. Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne, Memories of Hawthorne (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1897), p. 222.Google Scholar

15. Graves, Algernon, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from Its Foundation in 1769 to 1904 (London: Graves and Bell, 1906), VII, 318.Google Scholar

16. Graves, , Dictionary of Artists Who Have Exhibited Works in the Principal London Exhibitions from 1760 to 1893, 3rd ed. (London: Graves, 1901), p. 272.Google Scholar

17. MS letter to Mrs. Preston, 17 Nov. 1859 (British Library Add. MS. 40015, fol. 25).

18. The British Museum's Department of Prints and Drawings also has two lithographed engravings based upon portraits by Talfourd, both engraved by R. J. Lane: of Harding, John (1805–1874)Google Scholar, Bishop of Bombay, and of Smith, Albert Richard (1816–1860), novelist and lecturer.Google Scholar

19. Huxley, , p. 306.Google Scholar

20. MS letter (Berg Collection).

21. MS diary (Berg Collection).

22. MS letter (Berg Collection). The Prince of Wales did indeed see the portrait (Huxley, p. 313).

23. Most accounts of this episode have depended heavily upon a letter by Gosse printed in Rossetti, William Michael, “Portraits of Robert Browning,” Magazine of Art, 13 (05 1890), 187Google Scholar. However, Gosse's version is inaccurate: documents in the NPG files show that the shop owner had purchased the portrait directly from Talfourd (Gosse implies that it was “dispersed” after Talfourd's death) and that Thornycroft rather than Gosse made the actual transaction in Hammersmith.

24. MS letter (Berg Collection); published in part in Surtees, p. 261. Miss Heaton's name has been consistently inked over in the letter, perhaps by Arabel.

25. MS letter, n.d. (Berg Collection). The date of the letter is probably late July or early August 1859 (see McAleer, , Dearest Isa, p. 43).Google Scholar

26. Barnes, Warner, comp., Catalogue of the Browning Collection, the University of Texas (Austin: Humanities Research Center, Univ. of Texas, 1966), p. 35.Google Scholar

27. Browning refused to allow Chapman and Hall to reproduce the Bridell-Fox portrait, saying that the Talfourd was the only one he would permit to be published (MS letter, Browning to Ellen Heaton, 21 Oct. 1861 [Pforzheimer Library]).

28. MS letter (NPG). The portrait appears as No. 600 in the catalogue of the exhibition.

29. MS letter dated 19 Mar. 1868 (NPG).

30. Landis, and Freeman, , Letters to George Barrett, p. 291.Google Scholar

31. MS letter dated 20 Oct. 1869 Pforzheimer Library). In his last extant letter to Miss Heaton, 28 Mar. 1885, Browning wrote: “Dear Miss Heaton, we are old friends now: be assured I remember all your goodness to me and mine (MS letter [Pforzheimer Library]).

32. Sent by Scharf, to MissHeaton, , 6 04 1871 (NPG).Google Scholar

33. MS letter dated 11 Apr. 1871 (Pforzheimer Library).

34. Except for their covers, Sotheran Catalogues 737 and 42 are identical; they were issued from Sotheran's Strand and Piccadilly shops respectively.