The Artist's Wife Emma, on her Wedding Day by Ford Madox Brown, 1821-93

The Artist's Wife Emma, on her Wedding Day

Ford Madox Brown, 1821-93

Drawn on 5th April 1853

Coloured chalks on blue paper

15 X 12 1/2 inches, 38.1 X 31.8 centimetres

Provenance: The Artist's Family, by descent

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Commentary by Hilary Morgan

On 10th February 1849, Brown wrote in his diary that he had begun to paint Cordelia's veil in 'King Lear' but he had only laid in a part of it 'when a girl as loves me came and disturbed me'. This was Emma Matilda Hill, the subject of this drawing, then still a teenager. She probably began to model for Brown in 1848, and a portrait drawing dated Christmas 1848 (Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery) may mark the beginning of their closer relationship.

Victorian propriety falsified their story. Hueffer's biography of his grandfather, Madox Brown, states that they met in Stratford, where Brown was researching his picture of Shakespeare, and that when Emma's mother opposed the marriage they eloped, spending their honeymoon in Margate in September 1849. This was done to conceal the fact that Catherine, Emma's first child, was born in November 1850, three years before she actually married. In this period Emma's existence was concealed from all but Brown's closest friends although he gave her nothing but support and affection. They finally married on 5th April 1853, with Tom Seddon and Dante Gabriel Rossetti for witnesses. This drawing commemorates the event.

The drawing is executed boldly in chalk, for Brown only used the tight Pre-Raphaelite drawing style for small studies for pictures. Even when his painting was at its most detailed and precise in the early 1850s, his chalk portraits are astonishingly free. This work may be compared with his drawing of Catherine, dated l4th July 1852 (Walker Art Gallery) and the circumstances in which the present work was drawn would have encouraged Brown to work fast. Brown's later drawing of Emma (Walker Art Gallery) (4) for the lady of leisure in Work is a detailed drawing in pencil, but its primary function is as a preliminary study rather than a portrait. Emma had all the characteristics of an early Victorian beauty and the present drawing reveals Brown's appreciation of her looks. She had a regular oval face, wide set, heavy lidded eyes and a rosebud mouth. She modelled for many of Brown's paintings in the 1850s including Work and the Last of England.

References

Bennett, Mary. Artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle: the First Generation, Catalogue of Works on the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley Art Gallery. London: Lund Humphries, 1988.

Hueffer, F.M. Ford Madox Brown. London: Longmans, 1896.

Marsh, Jan. Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. London: Quartette, 1985.

Morgan, Hilary, and Peter Nahum. Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 8.

Surtees, V. (ed.). The Diary of Ford Madox Brown. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981.

Last modified 1 August 2001