Portrait of Miss Louie Jones by Ford Madox Brown

Portrait of Miss Louie Jones

Ford Madox Brown

Signed with monogram and dated 1862 at lower left

Pencil, coloured chalks and water colour on white paper

21 x 17 inches (sight)

Provenance: Mrs. R. Minshull Jones (1865)

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Commentary by Christopher Newall

Louie Jones, seen in this portrait in evening dress and holding a posy of flowers, was the daughter of Ford Madox Brown's cousin by marriage, William Jones, a solicitor in the City of London, who lived in Greenwich. His wife and the mother of the sitter, Anna, was born a Miss Madox but had died in 1855 (Preraphaelite Diaries, I, 184) Mary Bennet has provided the information that according to Ford Madox Brown's Account Book, the portrait was begun at Fortess Terrace, Kentish Town, where Brown was living, in 1859; he is further recorded as working on it in 1860 and it was finally presented to the sitter in 1862, which is the date given to it in Brown's 1865 Exhibition catalogue.

The portrait reflects Brown's affectionate, almost playful, feelings for his beautiful and elegant cousin. It is quite different in mood to the highly serious, occasionally tragic, themes of the figurative paintings of modern-life subjects by Ford Madox Brown which were contemporaneous with it.

References

The Exhibition of "Work," and other Paintings by Ford Madox Brown, at the Gallery, 191, Piccadilly. London, 1865.

Hueffer, Ford Madox, Ford Madox Brown, A Record of his Life and Work London, 1896, pp. 19, 160-61.

Newall, Christopher. A Celebration of British and European Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries. London: Peter Nahum, nd [1999?]. Pp. 20-21.

Rossetti, William Michael (ed.), Preraphaelite Diaries and Letters. London, 1900.

Last modified 27 June 2002