Articles The Models The Mysterious Models of John William Waterhouse | The Mysterious Models of John William Waterhouse |
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| Written by Cathy Baker | |
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John William Waterhouse
An "Idealized" Waterhouse Type Peter Trippi describes the women in Waterhouse's works as an "idealized, instantly recognizable type." ~ "... Waterhouse transcended the particularities of individual models to present his own idealized, instantly recognizable type ... Older contemporaries, such as Rossetti, Poynter and Moore, had devised their own types." (Peter Trippi, J.W. Waterhouse, 2002) ~ Anthony Hobson wrote about Waterhouse's "ideal vision of womanhood." - "… the paintings show how as the years went by he continually sought his ideal vision of womanhood, rather than some character type adapted to each new subject. The remarkable thing is that he found her and remained faithful to her in his art, reflecting the distant ideal of medieval courtly love in the warmed mirrors of Italian passion and Greek sensuality." (Anthony Hobson, The Art and Life of J W Waterhouse RA 1849-1917, 1980) ~ Julia Kerr recently shared a quotation from Ronald Graham. In 1904 he had also written about the Waterhouse "type". - "... such painters as Mr JW Waterhouse, R.A. also keep true to their own type of manhood and womanhood however much they may be influenced by the model of the moment." (Ronald Graham "Models for Famous Pictures", The Strand Magazine, September, 1904) ~ A slideshow to celebrate that "idealized" type we love. ~ Another video presents a collection of studies, sketches and drawings. John William Waterhouse - A Sonata of Beauty
John William Waterhouse, Chalk Study for the Lady Clare (1900) The Mysterious Models Though that "idealized, instantly recognizable type" is part of what we remember and admire about the artist ... there is always interest in Waterhouse's models. Those who have sought to study the life of John William Waterhouse have sadly not found journals or other sources of information to guide them in their quest to learn more about this very private man. Information about the names of models other than family members has only started to come to light in recent years. We have known that family members posed for Waterhouse and appear in some of his works. Jessie Waterhouse There are no surviving photographs of Waterhouse's sister. Peter Trippi believes that the following portrait by the artist dated from around 1875 could possibly be of Jessie.
John William Waterhouse, Portrait of a Young Woman (1875) and Whispered Words (1875) When it was exhibited in 1875, the catalogue entry for the painting, Whispered Words, included a poem about a woman named 'Jessie'. If this painting and Portrait of a Young Woman are of Waterhouse's sister, it is thought her likeness also appears in other paintings by the artist through about 1880.
John William Waterhouse Jessie never married ... and the details of her life are not known.
Mary Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (1888) Dr John Physick, great-nephew of Waterhouse, has shared: "... My father's mother was the artist's sister Mary. Nearly seventy years ago, she told me that her brother used her portrait as the model for The Lady of Shalott in the Tate Gallery." In his 2002 publication, Peter Trippi wrote that the model for The Magic Circle was probably "May Waterhouse."
John William Waterhouse, The Magic Circle (1886) Her likeness also seems to appear in other works ... among them, Spring, dating from 1900 (a variation of The Flower Picker). Mary also appears in paintings by William Logsdail, along with Nino (as Waterhouse was known to family and friends) and Esther Waterhouse.
John William Waterhouse, Spring (1900) and Study for the Flower Picker (1900)
Esther Waterhouse "On September 8, 1883, John William Waterhouse married Esther Kenworthy at the parish church of St Mary, Ealing. He was then thirty-four and she twenty-five. The names of his father, his step-mother, his sister Jessie, the bride’s mother and one of her brothers appear on the marriage certificate. Esther’s father, James Lees Kenworthy – himself an artist, who with his wife kept a school in Ealing – had died seven years previously.” (Anthony Hobson, The Art and Life of J.W. Waterhouse, RA, 1849-1917, 1980)
John William Waterhouse, Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse (circa 1885) And from Peter Trippi: “… No records reveal when Nino and Esther met. Kenworthy family tradition suggests that they met through her father …” “Esther’s career remains a mystery. Of the nine Kenworthy children, only she identified herself as an artist in the census … Esther did not study at the Slade or South Kensington, though perhaps elsewhere. She specialized in flower painting, and her documented career began in 1881 at the Academy, where she showed one or two pictures regularly until 1889, and where she may have met Nino. During the 1880s, Esther showed six pictures at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and a handful at the SBA, New Gallery, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.” “Her exhibiting ended suddenly in 1890, for no obvious reason. … Esther’s art has vanished, was never reviewed, and there is no evidence that she collaborated with her husband on his paintings.” (Peter Trippi, J. W. Waterhouse, 2002)
John William Waterhouse, The Loggia Nino and Esther Waterhouse spent time at Croyde along the North Devon coast with Esther's sister, Emily, and her husband, Peregrine Feeney. It is thought Esther appears in the painting, Gathering Summer Flowers in a Devonshire Garden and perhaps The Loggia. Peter Trippi notes, "In Gathering Flowers JWW wrote 'Croyde' below his signature."
John William Waterhouse, Gathering Summer Flowers in a Devonshire Garden (circa 1893-1910) The Marcus and Mary Eliza Gunn family also spent holidays in the same area. This seems to be where they and their daughters, Gwendoline and Beatrice, came to know the Waterhouses.
Gwendoline Gunn The friendship between Gwendoline Gunn's family and the Waterhouses continued through the years until Esther's death in 1944. In his 1980 publication, Anthony Hobson included a portrait of Gwendoline painted by Nino. Some feel that Gwendoline only posed for pictures of herself. But, perhaps her inspiration extended to other paintings by Waterhouse ... including Psyche Opening the Golden Box (1903), Nymphs finding the Head of Orpheus (1900), Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid's Garden (1904) and The Enchanted Garden (1916):
~ In video form ... Family members who posed for Waterhouse A friendship that began at Croyde
~ ~ ~ Recently Julia Kerr found the following statement written by Waterhouse. It comes from the March 1908 issue of The Strand Magazine. In the article, Artists and Beauty: The Opinions of Eminent Painters, the artists were asked to select from a group of photographs the person they would want as a model. Waterhouse wrote of his selection: “If I had to select one of these ladies,” said Mr. Waterhouse, “as a model for painting, I should have no hesitation about my choice. The lady of my preference, indeed, reminds me very much of one of my models. After she had been sitting to me for some time she went on the stage, and succeeding in obtaining fairly important parts, she naturally did not care to resume her former profession, and for some time I have lost sight of her. She sat only for the face. The face, as in this photograph, is so singularly beautiful that I was very sorry to lose the opportunity of painting it, and I have written once or twice lately to the lady's old address but without obtaining a reply.”
(Image courtesy Julia Kerr) The above quotation is important as it is the first known quotation from the artist about his preference for a model and includes some information about a woman who was a model for him "for some time". Perhaps research will lead us to the identity of the person he wrote about.
~ Some Names of Models We Now Know
John William Waterhouse Information about models other than family members has only started to come to light in recent years. Some names are gladly now known, but not the detailed stories that go with the individuals that sat before Waterhouse as he sketched or painted. Most of the names are of models that also worked with other artists of the time. Anthony Hobson believed the knight cloaked in armour in La Belle Dame Sans Merci was "emblematic of" Waterhouse's "own Victorian propriety," and he wrote, "there has been no suggestion of any dubious relationship between J W Waterhouse and his models". Karen E. Sullivan in her 1996 book, Pre-Raphaelites, describes Waterhouse as a quiet man with none of the "private passions" and turbulent home life that characterized many of the Pre-Raphaelites. Rupert Mass wrote, it "is likely to be that he chose his models as subjects of his romantic vision, not that the models themselves were the object of it, and that is why his beautiful yearning girls conform to a type.”
'Miss Kate Double' John William Waterhouse, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death (detail) (1874) It is believed Waterhouse sketched the young men in Sleep and His Half-Brother Death "from a female model" (Trippi, 29). Some of Waterhouse's sketchbooks are at the V&A Museum in London, as a gift from Dr. John Physick. A note in Peter Trippi's book describes a drawing found in V&A sketchbook (E1109-1963): "a sleeping head is annotated 'Miss Kate Double ...'. It seems the sketch of 'Miss Kate Double' was one preparatory work done by Waterhouse for his painting from 1874. Scott Thomas Buckle shares in his article, A Waterhouse Sketch Discovered, that Kate Double "is known to have posed for Whistler."
Agnes Richardson
Sir Frank Dicksee Letter to Miss Lloyd, written by Julia Kerr, gives information about a letter written from Waterhouse to 'Miss Lloyd'. It is thought the letter is addressed to Mary Lloyd, "a professional artists' model who sat for several well-known Victorian painters, including Sir Frank Dicksee and Lord Leighton" (Kerr). The article also shares information about another model, Agnes Richardson. Research by Simon Toll has revealed her to be a model for both Waterhouse and Herbert Draper. Toll writes, "Draper was certainly in close contact with Waterhouse by 1892 when the older artist introduced him to one of his models, Miss Agnes Richardson."
Edith Richardson
John William Waterhouse, Head of a Girl Agnes's sister, Edith, was also a model. In correspondence with Simon Toll, he shared that "based upon physical resemblence to a drawing by Draper" he believed the model in the Waterhouse sketch above to be Edith Richardson. Toll wrote in his monograph about Draper that the artist thought Edith "a better model" than her sister.
Angelo Colarossi
John William Waterhouse, The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius (detail) (1883) In A Waterhouse Sketch Discovered Scott Thomas Buckle writes about Angelo Colarossi, Harry Beresford, Miss Bantick and Kate Double. He reveals "that the name 'A Colarossi' is inscribed by the artist" in V&A sketchbook (E1109-1963), verifying an association between Waterhouse and the Italian model. Scott goes on to share that Colarossi can be seen "in the background of the 1883 painting The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius ..." The name, 'Miss Kate Double', is found in the same sketchbook as 'A Colarossi'. It seems they were both models in Waterhouse's early 'classical' settings.
Harry Beresford
John William Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus (1903) Scott Thomas Buckle also writes about two other names of models found in the pages of Waterhouse's sketchbooks at the V&A Museum in London. He shares with us that, V&A sketchbook (E.1111-1963), "contains a preparatory sketch for [the 1903] Echo and Narcissus inscribed with the names and addresses of two models" - 'Beresford' and 'Miss Bantock'. (It was first thought the model's last name was 'Bantick'.) Scott was the first to write about 'Miss Bantock' as a Waterhouse model. He also found that 'Beresford' is listed in the 1901 census as 'Harry Beresford', an 'Artist's Model'. (Update 1/15/08: Scott has just written a new article revealing more information about Harry Beresford and 'Miss Bantock' - Ethel Bantock - in Ethel and Narcissus - a closer look at two of Waterhouse’s models.) In his most recent article, Scott Thomas Buckle shares about an address book that once belonged to Waterhouse's friend and fellow artist, John Seymour Lucas. This was an important source of information used by Scott to confirm Ethel Bantock was the model Waterhouse had made a note about on his sketch for Echo and Narcissus. Sketches of both Harry Beresford and Ethel Bantock are in the Seymour Lucas address book. Recently I was looking through some copies of the Royal Academy Pictures and Sculpture series and found a drawing by John Seymour Lucas in the 1907 edition titled, Mrs Massey-Beaumont. The person in the drawing reminded me of Seymour Lucas's sketch of Ethel Bantock from his address book. A Roundaley by Seymour Lucas serves as the frontispiece of the book and the woman in the painting seemed to resemble the woman in the drawing which made me wonder if she had been the model for the painting. When I checked through online marriage records I found that an 'Ethel Bantock' of Fulham, London married in 1903. Had Ethel's married name become 'Massey-Beaumont'? After receiving a copy of the marriage certificate I found that Ethel had married the artist and engraver, Robert Stewart Clouston. So, it seems the sketch of Mrs Massey-Beaumont wasn't of Ethel. Ethel Bantock became Mrs R S Clouston on Thursday, November 26, 1903. The ceremony took place at the Fulham Register Office with two witnesses. Robert was 46 years old at the time of the wedding and a widower. Ethel was 28 years old. They both lived in the Shepherds Bush area of London. Clouston's address was given as 151 Percy Road and Ethel's as 111 Coningham Road - which as Scott pointed out is just east of Percy Road and north of Ravenscourt Park. Scott also shared that Angelo Colarossi was a Percy Road resident, at number 93. Robert's father, Charles Clouston is listed as a 'Clergyman' on the certificate and James William Bantock, Ethel's father, a 'Chemist'. W S Hewison's Who was Who in Orkney gives this information about Clouston: "b.1857 Sandwick, Orkney d.1911 Sydney, Australia. Artist; s. of Rev Charles Clouston and Margaret Clouston of Smoogro, Orphir. Educ. St Andrews, Edinburgh University 1876 and studied art at Royal Scottish Academy College of Art, Edinburgh. Exhibited at both Royal Academy, London and Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, mainly portraits and mezzotints, an art form in which he was recognised as a leading exponent in the country and for which he devised a new method of preparing the plates. Interested in archaeology he carried out first excavation of Onston cairn in Stenness. Also produced book on 18th century furniture ... Moving to New Zealand for health reasons continued painting, mostly portraits." Peter Clouston shared that in the book, Family of Clouston, Joseph Storer Clouston described Robert as "an artist - with all that temperamental calling is apt to imply; like his father and brothers, he was tall, handsome, and of an imposing presence; and it would have taken a very potent sorceress to have made him - or kept him - rich. As an artist he painted portraits more than competently and landscapes with promise, though both intermittently; but it was as an engraver that he won, not unfortunately a fortune, but a reputation only a little short of the highest in this country, and the posthumous reward of some columns of obituary notices. Outside artistic circles, his many friends knew him best as a golfer, deadly on the putting green and a storehouse of reminiscences of young Tommy Morris (he had been a schoolboy at St. Andrews). Altogether a personality to live long in the memory." The 1905 Royal Academy of Arts: a Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work gives a list of the engravings shown by Robert at the Royal Academy beginning in 1888 until 1897. The sketch of Ethel in the Seymour Lucas address book is thought to have been made circa 1896-7. In 1903 when Robert and Ethel married, he was publishing a series of articles on Thomas Chippendale in The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors (among them, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI). That series continued into 1904 with Part VII along with another article titled Chippendale's Contemporaries. In 1904 he also published articles on The Brothers Adam in The Connoisseur - Part I, Part II and Part III. The series, The Hepplewhite Period was published in the magazine in 1905 - Part II and Part III along with Thomas Sheraton - Part I, Part II and Part III. Articles were also published in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs - A Yorkshire collection of English Furniture Vol. 5, No. 16 (Jul., 1904) and Minor English Furniture Makers of the Eighteenth Century Vol. 7, No. 25 (Apr., 1905). These led to the publication of the book, English Furniture and Furniture Makers of the Eighteenth Century, in 1906. In 1907 two short biographies, Henry Raeburn, R.A. and Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., were published as part of the Newnes' Art Library Series. It seems Robert and Ethel moved to the Mayfair area of London after they married. Both the 1904 and the 1907 The Year's Art give "29 Maddox st., W" as the address of R. S. Clouston. This location is northeast of the Royal Academy and it had been the home of the woodcarver George Alfred Rogers until his death in 1897. Basil Hunnisett wrote in his 1998 publication, Engraved on Steel: The History of Picture Production Using Steel Plates that "Clouston emigrated to Australia in 1909 and died there after an accident in 1911. ..." The following is from the book, Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists: A Guide & Handbook: "CLOUSTON, Robert S. d.1911 ... Exhibited with NZ Academy of Fine Arts 1909–10." So, it seems Ethel and Robert were married eleven years when she became a widow in 1911. One would imagine she had gone to Australia with him - did she remain there after his death? Hopefully more information will be discovered about her life. We are grateful that Scott Thomas Buckle made the discovery about the identity of the Waterhouse model, Ethel Bantock. Alice Arter A journal entry by John Paul Cooper has revealed Alice Arter was a Waterhouse model. Peter Trippi shared, "... the Arts & Crafts designer, John Paul Cooper, wrote in 1896 that Alice Arter sat for Waterhouse, Abby, Burne-Jones and Sargent." The quote from Cooper's journal appeared in N. Natasha Kuzmanovic's 1999 publication, John Paul Cooper: Designer and Craftsman of the Arts & Crafts Movement. From a June 1896 entry by Cooper, "... have been working at Gesso workbox particularly the frieze of figures on the front for which I have had Alice Arter to sit to me. She sits to Burne-Jones, Sargeant [sic], Abbey and Waterhouse."
Beatrice Flaxman Her grandson shared with Anthony Hobson and later with others that Beatrice had been a Waterhouse model. He said that she would visit his gravesite after the artist's death. In recent years his son wrote about Beatrice as a model at this website's Waterhouse forum. We are grateful to know this, and hope the family will one day share photographs of Beatrice and more detailed information about her.
'Miss Muriel Foster' The name was first discovered in the Catalogue of Works of Anthony Hobson's 1980 monograph as the title for a Lamia study. The study was not published, but was thought to be similar to another Lamia sketch by Waterhouse that had appeared in The Studio. In recent years, a sketch with the inscription, 'Miss Muriel Foster' was found in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. With that discovery we found that the studies weren't at all similar. The remainder of the writing on the side of the paper is: 'Buxton Rd, Chingford'. This was new information about the inscription and helped to identify a seventeen year old S. Muriel Foster (1884-1974) that lived at 13 Buxton Road, Chingford at the time of the 1901 census. A descendant has shared the following photograph of the Muriel Foster that lived on Buxton Road. It is displayed next to the Study for Lamia (Yale Center for British Art) with the inscription, 'Miss Muriel Foster, Buxton Rd, Chingford'. As has been written before, it isn't known with certainty why Waterhouse wrote the name 'Miss Muriel Foster' on the side of the sketch. When the name was first discovered in association with a study for Lamia ... and the sketch itself had not been seen ... it was thought by some she was a favourite Waterhouse model Anthony Hobson had written about. That is no longer true. "The inscription is problematic because 1904-5 seems late in their relationship for Waterhouse to record his favourite model's name." Peter Trippi continues ... Peter also wrote that "Waterhouse relied on two or three principal models during each phase of his career ..." Without the aid of journals or other personal papers to shed light on Waterhouse's models we have only their names ... and not the thoughts of the artist to guide us. When Anthony Hobson wrote about a "favourite" model he did it with a quote from Gwendoline Gunn's daughter, Mrs. Donner. A quote that has always caught my attention and made me long for clarification: "... the girl in question sat for him regularly. She can be identified in most of the major subject pictures of the following years. We are told that he treated her very well, and that she sent a beautiful wreath to his funeral." (Followed in Anthony Hobson's dissertation by the footnote: "Mrs. Donner, who owns a study for Psyche Opening the Golden Box …, in which this model appears, in conversation with the author.") It seems they knew the name of the model being referred to ... but, we will probably never know for sure. I've wondered if perhaps she was speaking about her mother ... Gwendoline Gunn. And so, they truly are ... The Mysterious Models of John William Waterhouse. ~ The list of Waterhouse models has grown since only family members Jessie, Mary and Esther Waterhouse were known about. Hopefully more names and their stories will come to light in the future. Waterhouse Models: Alice Arter ~ A friend of the family: ~ A video summary of the models written about in the above articles by Julia Kerr and Scott ~ Julia Kerr recently shared a portrait drawing by Waterhouse of Aline Henderson.
Portrait Head of Aline Henderson (detail), 1911 The drawing had been a wedding gift from Waterhouse to Aline. Anthony Hobson shared this about the drawing: "A letter from Waterhouse to Mr H W Henderson's eldest daughter enclosed a drawing as a present on the occasion of her marriage to Brig-Gen Wigan. The wedding was on 15 February 1911 and the letter is dated 'June 13'. Reminiscent of his characteristic delay over his Diploma picture, it is addressed 'My dear Aline' and refers to 'the promised drawing, my belated wedding present, which I hope you will accept with my best wishes'. ... one gets a sense of the artist first patronized by her father about twelve years earlier having become something of a friend of the family." H W Henderson was the brother of Alexander Henderson, 1st Lord Farington. Hobson wrote, "only a sincere admiration for Waterhouse's work can explain the number of his paintings owned by four generations of the Henderson family. They amount to over thirty and comprise not only some of the masterpieces of the artist's middle period such as St Cecilia and Ariadne but pictures representative of almost the whole of his later output from 1903 to 1914. There are also family portraits of Lady Violet Henderson (1908), daughter-in-law of the first and mother of the second Lord Faringdon, of Mrs A P Henderson (1909), Mrs Philip Henderson (1913) and Mrs Arnold Henderson (1914), all exhibited at the Royal Academy." There are several paintings by Waterhouse that seem to capture the same likeness shown in the portrait of Aline. The video, John William Waterhouse - A portrait drawing in red chalk compares the drawing given to Aline to those paintings. ~ As mentioned above, a statement written by Waterhouse appeared in The Strand Magazine (March, 1908) in which he wrote about the person he had selected from a group of possible models. He wrote, “If I had to select one of these ladies as a model for painting, I should have no hesitation about my choice. The lady of my preference, indeed, reminds me very much of one of my models. After she had been sitting to me for some time she went on the stage, and succeeding in obtaining fairly important parts …” Also mentioned above is information about ‘Miss Muriel Foster’ and a photograph is shared of the Muriel Foster that lived at 13 Buxton Road, Chingford. The same street name that was written on a sketch by Waterhouse. Though she didn’t live on Buxton Road, Chingford – as was written with the inscription ‘Miss Muriel Foster’ on Waterhouse’s sketch for Lamia, some have wondered if the opera singer with the same name might have been a Waterhouse model. Since Waterhouse shared that one of his models later “went on the stage” the question has again been raised. Below is a photograph of the contralto. An excerpt from a 1904 article in The Musical Times gives some information about the singer. Neil Miley continues his research to determine if this Muriel Foster was in fact a Waterhouse model.
A photograph of the English contralto, Muriel Foster ~ Below is a group of studies, sketches and drawings by Waterhouse - now in private collections. Each image by Nino is so wonderful.
~ The theatre and its stars were sources of inspiration to Victorian artists. Below is a link to a video with images that may have influenced Waterhouse's The Magic Circle ... and some leading ladies of the stage that may have been an inspiration to the artist, at the theatre, through the printed page, photographs or in paintings by other artists ... Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Eleanora Duse. 'The Magic Circle' + Some stars of the Victorian Stage ~ References and Credits: © Cathy Baker 2008
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