“Emilie Isabel Barrington” by Mary Thornycroft

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Emilie Isabel Barrington (1844-1933)

Mary Thornycroft (1809-1895)

1881

Bronze

Collection: Leighton House, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

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Photograph, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. Photograph taken by kind permission at Leighton House The background has been digitally removed.

Emilie Barrington was Mary Thornycroft's next-door neighbour in Melbury Road, Kensington, where Mary and son Hamo Thornycroft had their studios. Emilie herself was an author, writing biographies (including ones of G. F. Watts and Frederic Leighton) and novels, as well as a talented artist: two very accomplished portraits by her are on display in the Silk Room at Leighton House. She looks rather formidable, and wielded her strength of character for the good. For example, as a friend of Octavia Hill, she encouraged Walter Crane to take an interest in her Red Cross Cottages project, and paint murals in the Red Cross Hall in 1889 (see Maltz 25). Shirley Nicholson adds, "After Leighton’s death she became a leading member of the movement to preserve Leighton House as a public memorial."

Links to related material

Melbury Road, Leighton House, and the Holland Park Artists' Houses

Bibliography

Maltz, Diana. British Aestheticism and the Urban Working Classes, 1870-1900: Beauty for the People. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Created 16 October 2022