May Memories
Ford Madox Brown
Signed with monogram and dated 69-84
Oil on canvas
16 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches, 42.5 x 29.5 centimetres
Provenance: The artist; The artist's executor's sale, 29-31 May 1894, lot 129 (?); Mrs Catherine Hueffer, the artist's daughter; thence by descent to: Rt. Hon. Sir Frank Soskice MP.
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Commentary by Peter Nahum and Sally Burgess
Ford Madox Brown began this painting of his second wife, Emma, at his house in Fitzroy Square, London in 1869, retouching and finally working it up for sale in Manchester in May 1884. The year 1870 began as one of some depression does, and held on its course rather languidly. No pictures new in subject were commenced, but designs for pictures, subsequently executed, had their origin in the already referred to illustrations of Moxon's 'Byron'. The early part of the year was occupied by the painting of a fancy portrait' of Mrs Madax Brown, May Memories, of a lady of sumptuous charms sitting amongst a wealth of may-blossoms, meditating on the glories of her may-days in the 'temps jadis'. This picture was, however, not finished until long subsequently. [Hueffer, 255]
... During the early part of the year following [1884] the exigencies of his pocket and the prospect of possible sales caused Madox Brown to recur to his old device of retouching and finishing up old pictures, a kind of work that the months of April and May were devoted. The works treated in this way were the pictures of the Traveller, an oil replica of that work of sixteen years' standing, and the portrait of Mrs Madox Brown, called May Memories. [Hueffer, 366]
Related Material
References
Hueffer, Ford Madox, Ford Madox Brown, A Record of his Life and Work London, 1896, pp. 19, 160-61.
Nahum, Peter, and Sally Burgess. Pre-Raphaelite-Symbolist-Visionary. London: Peter Nahum at Leicester Galleries. Catalogue number 7.
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Last modified 27 June 2002