[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Victorian Painters —> The PRB and later Pre-Raphaelitism —> Dante Gabriel Rossetti]

Commentary by Peter Nahum

William Holman Hunt discovered Annie Miller working as a barmaid in a Chelsea slum. With her graceful neck and sensuous, full mouth, Hunt saw in her his ideal of Pre-Raphaelite beauty and 'rescued' her with the intention of moulding her into a lady to be his wife. When, in 1854, Hunt left London for the Holy Land, he became very possessive and strictly forbade her to model for other artists, in particular Rossetti.

Despite Hunt's restrictions, Annie was strong willed and rebellious. She modelled for Rossetti's Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice (1856, Tate Britain) and sat for several portrait drawings. To make things worse, she also sat for George Price Boyce and accompanied both artists to restaurants and for walks in the park.

When Hunt discovered this on his return, declared, "I will never forgive Gabriel" (Fleming, 128), and he poured out his distress to Madox Brown that "she had been taken to 'all sorts of places of amusement' including the Cremorne pleasure gardens, where she danced with Boyce!" (Marsh, 162). William Michael Rossetti alluded to his brother's transgressions in a letter: "It behooves me to add that Mr Hunt was wholly blameless in this matter; not so my brother, who was properly, though I will not say very deeply, censurable" (Rossetti, I, 201). [Hunt's correspondence with his longtime friend F. G. Stephens, one of the orginal members of the PRB who became an art critic, contains a series of letters that reveal Annie and her father tried to blackmail Hunt. According to one author, Annie married a wealthy man and ended up a widow living comfortably in a fashionable part of London — good material for a novel! GPL]

In 1858, Annie Miller sat to Holman Hunt as the model for the enlightened mistress for his famous work, The Awakening Conscience (Tate), although by 1860, Hunt had relinquished all ideas of marriage and withdrawn Annie's allowance. After this, she seemed more determined than ever to model for Rossetti "in preference to doing anything else" (Marsh, 209). This caused yet more turmoil when Rossetti's wife, Lizzy Siddal, became jealous. She was even rumoured to have flung drawings of Annie into the Thames.

This powerful portrait of Annie, with her slightly raised chin and assured expression, was most likely made after she had asserted her independence from Hunt. Here she has blossomed into a strong woman. In 1860, George Price Boyce, a connoisseur of Stunners and the author of her portrait some six years earlier, observed that "she looked more beautiful than ever" (Marsh, 209) on viewing a drawing of her that Rossetti was making.

Bibliography

Fleming, G. H. . That Ne'er Shall Meet Again. London: Michael Joseph, 1971.

Marsh, Jan. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Painter and Poet. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999.

Rossetti, William Michael. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, His Family Letters. London Ellis and Elbey, 1895.

---

Victorian
Web

Artists

D. G.
Rossetti

Drawings &
Watercolors

Next

Last modified 16 March 2006