Fanny Cornforth © Tate Gallery, London. c. 1859. Graphite on paper. Size: support: 140 x 146 mm. Collection: Tate. Bequeathed by J.R. Holliday in 1927. Image ID: A00845 and accession no. A00845. Kindly released by the gallery on this Creative Commons License, CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported).
Though faint, this pencil portrait is very striking for its skill and its refinement, and supports those who feel Fanny was, up until quite recently, wrongly erased from Rossetti's story. Kathryn Hughes gives the example of Frederic George Stephens, who "lingered rapturously over Bocca Baciata in his 1904 biography of the artist, describing that work as ‘saturated with passion’ and ‘one of the finest pictures of our age,' before pointedly refusing to identify the model" (276). Hughes goes on to suggest that "There was something about Fanny, her utter vulgarity, which made her inadmissible to the official annals of Rossetti’s life and art" (276). But there is no hint of "vulgarity" here — quite the contrary. With regard to Fanny, for all his teasing of her, Rossetti was more discerning than her detractors. For her part, Fanny remained loyal to him, and it is little short of tragic that she should have been forced to spend her last two years in Graylingwell mental asylum (see Hughes 283). — Jacqueline Banerjee.
Links to Related Material
- Fanny Cornforth, the Rogue Elephant
- Rossetti's Real Fair Ladies: Lizzie, Fanny, and Jane
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s Thoughts of the Past (Fanny Cornforth as Stanhope's model)
Bibliography
"Fanny Cornforth." Tate. Web. 13 February 2023.
Hughes, Kathryn. Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum. London: 4th Estate, 2017.
Created 13 February 2023