Rossetti and His Circle
Encyclopedia
Rossetti and His Circle is a book of twenty-three caricatures by English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 caricaturist
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

, essayist
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

 and parodist
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 Max Beerbohm
Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...

. Published in 1922 by William Heinemann
Heinemann (book publisher)
Heinemann is a UK publishing house founded by William Heinemann in Covent Garden, London in 1890. On William Heinemann's death in 1920 a majority stake was purchased by U.S. publisher Doubleday. It was later acquired by commemorate Thomas Tilling in 1961...

, the drawings were Beerbohm's humorous imaginings concerning the life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

, the period, as he put it, "just before oneself." The book is now considered one of Beerbohm's masterpieces.

Beerbohm and Rossetti

Beerbohm returned to England from his home in Rapallo
Rapallo
Rapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....

 in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 so that he could study photographs of the subjects he depicted in his caricatures. During the winter of 1917 he rented a cottage in the English countryside near the home of his friend William Rothenstein
William Rothenstein
Sir William Rothenstein was an English painter, draughtsman and writer on art.-Life and work:William Rothenstein was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry...

 so that he could work on his Rossetti drawings. Every day, carrying his portfolio of drawings with him, Beerbohm walked across the snow to visit Rothenstein. "No wonder Max was nervous of leaving his Rossetti caricatures in an empty cottage... What a remarkable reconstruction of a period!" Rothenstein later wrote.
Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

 had captured Beerbohm's imagination. "In London, in the great days of a deep, smug, thick, rich, drab, industrial complacency," he wrote, "Rossetti shone, for the men and women who knew him, with the ambiguous light of a red torch somewhere in a dense fog. And so he still shines for me."

Beerbohm's caricatures include Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 with his sister Christina
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...

, John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

, William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

, John Millais and George Meredith
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...

. In plate 22, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

, on his 1882 lecture tour in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, describes the delights of the Aesthetic Movement
Aestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...

 to a fascinated audience. This tour had been organised by Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...

 to publicize the new Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

 opera Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...

.

Sir Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...

 bequeathed Beerbohm's original watercolour artwork for Rossetti and His Circle to the Tate Collection
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1941.

A special limited edition of 380 numbered copies bound in white cloth was also published in 1922. These were signed by Beerbohm.

Contents

  • Note (Beerbohm's Introduction to the Caricatures)
  • Frontispiece: Rossetti in Childhood.
  • 1. British Stock and Alien Inspiration.
  • 2. Rossetti's Courtship.
  • 3. A Momentary Vision that once Befell Young Millais.
  • 4. A Remark by Benjamin Jowett.
  • 5. Coventry Patmore at Spring Cottage.
  • 6. Ned Jones and Topsy.
  • 7. John Ruskin meets Miss Cornforth.
  • 8. Blue China.
  • 9. Woolner at Farringford.
  • 10. Ford Madox Brown patronised by Holman Hunt.
  • 11. The Small Hours in the Sixties at 16, Cheyne Walk.
  • 12. Gabriel and Christina.
  • 13. George Meredith's Hortation.
  • 14. William Bell Scott Wondering.
  • 15. Robert Browning introduces a Great Lady.
  • 16. George Augustus Sala with Rossetti.
  • 17. Swinburne and Mr. Gosse.
  • 18. Mr. Morley brings Mr. Mill.
  • 19. Mr. Leighton suggests Candidature.
  • 20. Mr. Watts, Mr. Shields, and Mr. Caine.
  • 21. The Touch of a Vanished Hand.
  • 22. Rossetti's Name is heard in America.

The Plates

Image Description
Frontispiece. Rossetti in Childhood
D. G. Rossetti, precociously manifesting, among the exiled patriots who frequented his father
Gabriele Rossetti
Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti was an Italian poet and scholar who emigrated to England.Born in Vasto in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the original family of his ancestors was Della Guardia...

's house in Charlotte Street
Charlotte Street
Charlotte Street is a well-known street in Fitzrovia, central London, England. The southern half of the street has many restaurants and cafes, and a lively nightlife during the evening; while the northern part of the street is more mixed in character and includes the large office building of the...

, that queer indifference to politics which marked him in his prime and his decline.
British Stock and Alien Inspiration 1849
First County Member/Holman Hunt: "Very clever no doubt"

Second County Member/John Millais: "Full of wonderful ideas, but"

First County Member/Holman Hunt; Second County Member/John Millais: "not to be trusted for one moment".

(Benjamin Disraeli pondered by Tory MPs; Rossetti pondered by Hunt
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

 and Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

)
Rossetti's Courtship
Elizabeth Siddal
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal was an English artists' model, poet and artist who was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Walter Deverell, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and most of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's early paintings of women.-Early...

. Chatham Place, 1850-1860
A Momentary Vision that once Befell Young Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

The Sole Remark Likely to Have Been Made by Benjamin Jowett
Benjamin Jowett
Benjamin Jowett was renowned as an influential tutor and administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, a theologian and translator of Plato. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.-Early career:...

 about the Mural Paintings
Oxford Union murals
The Oxford Union murals are a series of mural decorations in the Oxford Union library building. The series was executed by a team of Pre-Raphaelite artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones...

 at the Oxford Union
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, Britain, whose membership is drawn primarily but not exclusively from the University of Oxford...


" And what were they going to do with the Grail when they found it, Mr. Rossetti?"
Spring Cottage, Hamstead, 1860
Coventry Patmore
Coventry Patmore
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...

 preaches very vehemently to the Rossettis that a tea-pot is not worshipful for its form and colour but as a sublime symbol of domesticity.
Topsy
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

 and Ned Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

, settled on the Settle in Red Lion Square.
An Introduction
Miss Cornforth
Fanny Cornforth
Fanny Cornforth was an English maidservant who became a model and mistress to Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

: "Oh, very pleased to meet Mr. Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, I'm sure.".
Blue China
(Whistler and Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

)
Woolner at Farringford
Farringford House
Farringford House is a large manor house, with beautiful gardens, a large front garden where helicopters land, a restaurant called the 'Bistro' which has regular livebands and a previous Masterchef programme winner as a chef, outside swimming pool, tennis courts, holiday homes and a 9 hole golf...

, 1857
Mrs. Tennyson: "You know, Mr. Woolner
Thomas Woolner
Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members....

, I'm one of the most un-meddlesome of women; but — when (I'm only asking), when do you begin modelling his halo?"
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

 patronised by Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

The Small Hours in the Sixties at 16, Cheyne Walk
Cheyne Walk
Cheyne Walk , is a historic street in Chelsea, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It takes its name from William Lord Cheyne who owned the manor of Chelsea until 1712. Most of the houses were built in the early 18th century. Before the construction in the 19th century of the busy...


Algernon
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

 Reading Anactoria
Anactoria
Anactoria is the name of a woman mentioned by Sappho as a lover of hers in Fragment 16 , often referred to by the title "To an Army Wife, in Sardis." Fragment 31 is traditionally called the "Ode to Anactoria", though no name appears in it Anactoria (or Anaktoria) is the name of a woman mentioned...

to Gabriel
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 and William
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti was an English writer and critic.-Biography:Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.He was one of the seven founder members of the...

Rossetti, having just had a fresh consignment of "stunning" fabrics from that new shop in Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

, tries hard to prevail on his younger sister to accept at any rate one of these and have a dress made of it from designs to be furnished by himself.
D. G. R. "What is the use, Christina, of having a heart like a singing bird and a water-shoot and all the rest of it, if you insist on getting yourself up like a pew-opener? "

C. R. "Well, Gabriel, I don't know I'm sure you yourself always dress very quietly."
Mr. William Bell Scott
William Bell Scott
William Bell Scott was a Scottish poet and artist.-Life:The son of Robert Scott , the engraver, and brother of David Scott, the painter, he was born in Edinburgh. While a young man he studied art and assisted his father, and he published verses in the Scottish magazines...

 wondering what it is those fellows seem to see in Gabriel
Mr. Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

 brings a lady of rank and fashion to see Mr. Rossetti.
Rossetti in his worldlier days (circa 1866-1868) leaving the Arundel Club with George Augustus Sala
Mr. Sala: "You and I, Rossetti, we like and we understand each other. Bohemians, both of us, to the core, we take the world as we find it. I give Mr. Levy
Joseph Moses Levy
Joseph Moses Levy was a newspaper editor and publisher.The son of Moses Levy and Helena Moses, he was educated at Bruce Castle School, after which he was sent to Germany to learn the printing trade. When he returned to England he established a printing company in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street...

 what he wants, and you give Mr. Rae and Mr. Leyland
Frederick Richards Leyland
Frederick Richards Leyland was a Liverpool shipowner and art collector.-Career:Leyland served as an apprentice in the firm of John Bibby, Sons & Co, where he rose to become a partner. In 1867 he took on the tenancy of Speke Hall, Liverpool and in 1869 bought a house in London at 49 Princes Gate...

 what they want, and glad we are to pocket the cash and foregather at the Arundel."
Riverside Scene
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

 taking his great new friend Gosse
Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...

 to see Gabriel Rossetti.
Mr. Morley
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn OM, PC was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially a journalist, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1883...

 of Blackburn, on an afternoon in the spring of 69, introduces Mr John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...


"It has recently," he says, "occurred to Mr. Mill that in his lifelong endeavour to catch and keep the ear of the nation he has been hampered by a certain deficiency in well, in warmth, in colour, in rich charm. I have told him that this deficiency (I do not regard it as a defect) might possibly be remedied by you. Mr. Mill has in the press at this moment a new work, entitled 'The Subjection of Women.' From my slight acquaintance with you, and from all that I have seen and heard of your work, I gather that women greatly interest you, and I have no doubt that you are incensed at their subjection. Mr. Mill has brought his proof-sheets with him. He will read them to you. I believe, and he takes my word for it, that a series of illustrative paintings by you would" etc., etc.
The Man from Hymettus

Mr. Frederic Leighton : "Think not for one moment, my dear Mr. Rossetti, that I am insensible to the charm of a life recluded, as yours is, from the dust of the arena, from the mire of the market-place. Ah no! I envy you your ivory tower. How often at some Council Meeting of the R.A. have I murmured within me that phrase of Wordsworth's, 'The world is too much with us'! But alas, in all of us there is a duality of nature. You, O felix nimium, are poet as well as painter. I, separated from my easel, am but a citizen. And the civistic passion yes, passion, dear Mr. Rossetti- restrains the instinct of the artist in me towards solitude, and curbs the panting of the hart in me for the water-brooks. I feel that I have, in conjunction with my colleagues, a duty to the nation. To improve the taste of the Sovereign, the taste of her ever-genial first-born and of his sweet and gracious consort, of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the faithful Commons, of the Judicial Bench, of those who direct the Army and Navy and Reserve Forces, of our merchant princes in Threadneedle Street and of our squires in the Shires, and through all these to bring light and improvement to those toiling millions on whom ultimately the glory of Great Britain rests all this is in me an ambition not to be stifled and an aspiration not to be foregone. You smile, Mr. Rossetti, yet I am not disemboldened to say to you now, as I have often wished to say to you, in the words of the Apostle Paul, 'Come over and help us!' Our President I grant you in confidence is not of all men the most enlightened. But I, in virtue of what is left to me of youth and ardour, conjoined with the paltry gift of tact, have some little influence at Burlington House. Come now! let me put your name down in our Candidates' Book."
Quis Custodiet Ipsum Custodem?
Theodore Watts: "Mr. Caine
Hall Caine
Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH, KBE , usually known as Hall Caine, was a Manx author. He is best known as a novelist and playwright of the late Victorian and the Edwardian eras. In his time he was exceedingly popular, and at the peak of his success his novels outsold those of his...

, a word with you ! Shields
Frederic Shields
Frederic James Shields , was a British artist, illustrator and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown.-Early years:...

 and I have been talking matters over, and we are agreed that tonight and henceforth you must not and shall not read any more of your literary efforts to our friend. They are too what shall I say? too luridly arresting, and are the allies of insomnia."
Mr. ___ and Miss ___ nervously perpetuating the touch of a vanished hand.
(Charles Augustus Howell
Charles Augustus Howell
Charles Augustus Howell was an art dealer and alleged blackmailer who is best known for persuading the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti to dig up the poems he buried with his wife Elizabeth Siddal...

 and Rosa Corder
Rosa Corder
Rosa Frances Corder was a Victorian artist and artist's model. She was the lover of Charles Augustus Howell, who is alleged to have persuaded her to create forgeries of drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.-Career:...

).
The Name of Rossetti is Heard for the First Time in the United States of America.
Time: 1881. Lecturer: Mr. Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

.

See also

  • Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen
    Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen
    Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen is a book of twenty-five caricatures by English caricaturist, essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm. It was published in 1896 by Leonard Smithers and Co and was Beerbohm's first book of caricatures....

    (1896)
  • The Poets' Corner
    The Poets' Corner
    The Poets' Corner is a book of twenty caricatures by English caricaturist, essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm. It was published in 1904 by William Heinemann, and was Beerbohm's second book of caricatures, the first being Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen .Named after Poets’ Corner, the name...

    (1904)
  • Fifty Caricatures
    Fifty Caricatures
    Fifty Caricatures is a book of fifty caricatures by English caricaturist, essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm. It was published in 1913 by William Heinemann in Britain and E.P. Dutton & Company in the United States...

    (1913)

External links

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