Note 41 to Chapter 9 of the author's George Eliot and the Visual Arts, which Yale University Press published in a 1979. It has been included in the Victorian web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.
On the tradition of "la representation des cabinets d'amateurs," see Legrand, Les peintres flamands de genre, pp. 14-15. On the most famous English painting in this mode, see Mary Webster Lightbown, "Zoffany's Painting of Charles Towneley's Library in Park Street," The Burlington Magazine, 106 (1964), 31623. Leighton's illustration follows the convention, noted by Paulson (Emblem and Expression, pp. 153-54), of creating significant visual relationships between the collector and his artifacts; thus Bardo is associated with the marble-eyed Roman bust, whereas Romola is linked with the beautiful feminine torso at the foot of the reading-desk.
Last modified 20 September 2000