Lovers listening to Music
Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
circa 1854
Materials
Pencil, pen and ink on paper
Measurements
378 mm (h) x 398 mm (w) x 20 mm (d)
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1287930
Summary
Pencil, pen and ink drawing on paper, Lovers listening to Music by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862), about 1854. A girl and a youth seated; two women, variously described as 'Egyptian' or 'Indian' with musical instrument, potentially a santoor, kneeling at their feet; a child by a gate at the right. Glued to paper backing, card mount; glazed in narrow frame.
Full description
The title was not chosen by Siddal, but is taken from Rossetti’s description: ‘the two Egyptian girls playing to lovers’. Siddal's art is often inspired by poetry and this dream-like drawing might illustrate as Jan Marsh has suggested part of one of her poems, The Passing of Love: ‘Love kept my heart in a song of joy My pulses quivered to the tune; The coldest blasts of winter blew Upon it like sweet airs in June.’ It has been argued by Nunn and Marsh that this is an imaginative representation of Lizzie and Rossetti at the romantic spot known as Lovers Seat near Hastings where they visited in 1854. William Michael Rossetti (Gabriel’s brother) described in 1903: ‘The man’s face is I think studied from Gabriel.’ In 1855 this drawing, with others, was shown by Rossetti to Ruskin (the public promoter of the Pre-Raphaelites) to secure patronage for his pupil. Rossetti reported that Ruskin ‘saw and bought on the spot every scrap of designs hitherto produced by Miss Siddal’, declaring they were even better than Rossetti’s. He offered £30 for them all and promised to have them well mounted. Two identical drawings of this subject exist. Wightwick’s version was drawn by Lizzie when it was realised that the drawing, promised to the poet William Allingham, had been accidentally included in the works bought by Ruskin in 1855. Ruskin, a great enthusiast for her work, wanted her to stop drawing "fancies" - imaginary scenes - and to improve her technique by drawing sometimes "in a dull way from dull things". The drawing is very much in the early Pre-Raphaelite manner, with awkward, angular figures, strong outlines contrasting with areas of hatching, uncertain perspective and mediaeval costumes. The source of the subject is uncertain: it may be an original composition by Siddal rather than a subject from literature or the Bible. The picture remains something of a puzzle, the identities of the figures or the symbolism by no means certain.
Provenance
Probably Charles Fairfax Murray; by descent to his son Arthur R. Murray; purchased Sotheby's 15 February 1961, part of lot 6 (an album of drawings and sketches mostly by Elizabeth Siddal); purchased by Sir Geoffrey Mander, c.£120-170 the lot; (Sir Geoffrey Mander later sold 6 of the pictures in the purchased lot to Jeremy Maas, including Siddal's Lady of Shalott); transferred to the National Trust on the death of Rosalie Glynn Grylls, Lady Mander (1905 - 1988)
Makers and roles
Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862), artist
Exhibition history
Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2019 - 2020
References
Marsh & Nunn 1989 Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, 1989, p 68; ill. Fig. 19 Marsh & Nunn 1997 Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists, (exh. cat.) Manchester City Art Gallery, 1997, No. 21, p 115 Jacobi and Finch 2023: Carol Jacobi and James Finch (eds.), The Rosettis, exh.cat. Tate Britain, London and Delaware Art Museum, 2023, no. 163, p. 156.