“Mr. Narcissus Ruskin” by Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)</span>

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Mr. Narcissus Ruskin

Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)

Wood engraving

Punch (18 December 1880): 286

“Punch’s Fancy Portraits. — No. 12”

“Who isn't that says most? Which can say more,
Than this rich praise, – That you alone are You!.”

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Image capture and text by George P. Landow.

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Sambourne includes an altar to Ruskin’s hero J. M. W. Turner on which burn “insence [sic] sweet offering” and a second smaller one on which burn “engineer mechanic Watt[?] steam engine,” which probably refers to Ruskin’s dislike of modern technology and its effects on the environment as well as on his successful opposition to building a railway through the Lake Country. The most likely reason for Sambourne’s hostility and accusation of egotism comes from the Ruskin-Whistler trial.

Although Daumier had created a grotesque caricature of Narcissus in 1842, Sambourne most likely parodies Caravaggio’s famous painting in this cartoon. John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus and Solomon J. Solomon’s painting with the same title were painted after the cartoon 1903 and 1895; Alfred Bertram Pegram’s sculpture of a reclining nude Narcissus, which is close to Sambourne’s pose, was not created until around 1906.

Related Material Including Other Caricatures of John Ruskin

Created 13 May 2020