Proud Maisie. Left: 1868. Black and red chalks on green-tinted paper. 17 5/16 x 13 5/16 inches (43.9 x 33.8 cm). Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. P7-1933. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Right: c.late 1860s, early 1870s. Black and red chalks on cream paper. 15 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches (40 X 26 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Peter and Renate Nahum.
Betty Elzea has described this drawing as: "Bust of a young girl almost in profile to the left. Her eyes are turned towards the spectator, with frowning brows. Her left hand is raised, in the lower left corner, clutching a lock of her long, curly hair, an end of which is clenched between her teeth. The hair on the top of her head is drawn back behind her ear, and a rose placed there. The shoulder line of her dress is decorated with oblong tabs, reminiscent of mid-17th century fashion" (193-94).
Proud Maisie is the most famous of Sandys's drawings, its popularity attested to by the fact that it exists in at least thirteen known versions of varying quality. The first of these drawings was exhibited at the Royal Academy in in 1868, no. 735, under the title Study of a head. This is likely the version illustrated here from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. A later drawing exists from 1868 that is now inscribed Proud Maisie, also in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (accession no. E.1253-1948). This suggests that at some point early on Sandys decided this drawing would be more commercial with a title suggesting a literary allusion, in this case derived from a well-known poem by Sir Walter Scott, "The Pride of Youth," which appears at the end of Chapter 40 in his The Heart of Midlothian:
Proud Maisie is in the wood
Walking so early;
Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
Singing so rarely.
"Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?" –
When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye.'
"Whom makes the bridal bed,
Birdie say truly?" –
"The grey-headed sexton
That delves the grave duly.
"The glow-worm o'er grave and stone
Shall light thee steady.
The owl from the steeple single,
'Welcome, proud lady.'"
As Douglas Schoenherr has pointed out, however, "aside from depicting a proud, disdainful beauty the drawing does not really illustrate the death-and-the-maiden theme of Scott's poem" (285). This was typical of many of Sandys's pictures where fanciful titles were added to his portraits of the heads of beautiful women, such as his May Margaret, Miranda, or Perdita. Schoenherr also discussed how the deeply sensual image of Proud Maisie drawing a lock of hair through her teeth was derived from D.G. Rossetti's many studies of Elizabeth Siddal for the figure of Delia in The Return of Tibullus to Delia (285). Sandys first used this theme of a woman drawing a strand of hair through her teeth in his illustration from 1866 for Christina Rossetti's poem "If" where it was used to represent the "intense sexual longings of the heroine." Sandys repeated this motif again soon afterwards in his illustration Helen and Cassandra also dating to 1866. This illustration shows a sulky Helen drawing a strand of hair through her teeth. (Schoenherr, 286).
The subject of Proud Maisie appears to have evolved from an earlier drawing entitled Love's Shadow from 1867 (Elzea, 2.A.98). The major difference is in this drawing the model is biting on the tip of a nosegay of flowers. In early versions of Proud Maisie done in the late 1860s, early 1870s, the model is Sandys's common-law wife Mary Emma Jones. In the late versions, done between 1902-04, such as the drawing at the National Gallery of Canada, the model was Sandys youngest daughter Gertrude. The drawings are all in chalk, although they may be done with a combination of black and red chalks or sometimes with red or black chalk alone. In the later versions Proud Maisie does not have the rose in her hair and her hair is handled somewhat differently as is the fashion of her sleeve. One of the finest of the early versions is one that was with Peter Nahum in the 1980s and is now in a private collection. Another similar example is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (accession no. 190-4).
Contemporary Reviews of the Drawing
When the initial version was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1868 it received favourable reviews. Algernon Swinburne in Royal Academy Notes wrote: "Among the drawings here are two studies by Mr. Sandys, both worthy of the high place held by the artist…the other, a woman's face, is one of his most solid and splendid designs; a woman of rich, ripe, angry beauty, she draws one lock of curling hair through her full and moulded lips, biting it with bared bright teeth, which add something of a tiger's charm to the sleepy and couching passion of her fair face" (43). W. M. Rossetti in the same publication added his brief comments on Study of a Head: "This is an excellent study of a wilful, timeless-spirited beauty, who bites her hair in her gathering mood" (25).
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum merely commented: "A very noble and expressive face is that which Mr. Sandys has drawn in Study of a Head" (734). The critic for The Illustrated London News, on revising his notices of the Royal Academy Exhibition, felt he had failed to sufficiently point out some works which required a word of warmer praise including: "a head, skilfully drawn, though mannered in type and treatment, by Mr. Sandys" (618).
Bibliography
Cooper, Suzanne Fagence. Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria & Albert Museum. London: V & A Publications, 2003, 116.
Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 2001, cat. 2.A.111, 193-94 and cat. 2.A.116, 195-96.
"Fine Arts." The Illustrated London News LII (June 10, 1868): 618.
Nahum, Peter. Second Exhibition, Master Drawings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London: Peter Nahum, 1985, cat. no. 6.
Proud Maisie. Victoria and Albert Museum. Web. 20 August 2025.
Rossetti, William Michael. Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1868. London: John Camden Hotten, Part One, 1-30.
"Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series VII (1 June 1868): 107.
Schoenherr, Douglas E. Master Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada. Washinton: The National Gallery of Art, 1988, cat. 89, 283-86.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2117 (23 May 1868): 734-36.
Stunners. Pre-Raphaelite Art from a Private American Collection. London: Christie's (16 June 2015): lot 18, 42-43.
Swinburne, Algernon. Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1868. London: John Camden Hotten, Part Two: 31-51.
Wood, Esther. A Consideration of the Art of Frederick Sandys; Being the Special Winter Number of The Artist. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1896. 32.
Created 20 August 2025