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Lot Essay
This rare early work by one of the most important members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle shows the three eldest children of the artist's cousin and brother-in-law, Augustus Frederick Bromley, and his wife Helen. Brown's first wife was Augustus's sister Elizabeth. They married in 1840, the ceremony taking place in Paris where Brown was living at the time, studying the Old Masters in the Louvre. A child, Lucy, was born in 1843, and in the summer of 1844 the family returned to England. Mrs Brown's health, however, deteriorated, and in August 1845 they left for Rome. By May 1846 it was clear that she was dying, and they set out once again for England. She succumbed as they reached Paris on 5 July, dying in a carriage in the Boulevard des Italiens with her head on her husband's shoulder.
During these early years Brown painted a number of portraits of his Bromley relations, who lived at Meopham in Kent. In his memorial account of his grandfather's career, Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford) describes how the artist stayed with the Bromleys during a visit to England in March 1840. 'Here [i.e. at Meopham] he painted portraits of all his relations there resident. They are mostly quaint little medallions'. The sitters included his cousin Elizabeth, and it was the painting of this portrait, according to Heuffer, that 'caused an ensnaring of hearts' and the subsequent marriage of the artist and his subject, 'which took place the same year in Paris' (op. cit., p. 26). Other portraits are said to have been undertaken in 1844 when the Browns were staying with the Bromleys at Meopham, seeing if Elizabeth's health would stand the English climate. During the stay, Hueffer tells us, Brown painted Elizabeth's brother Augustus, his wife Helen, and their horse (op. cit., pp., 37, 434).
According to W.D. Paden (loc. cit.), the three eldest children of Augustus and Helen, that is to say the sitters in our picture, were all born before 1841. Helen, who died in 1855 aged seventeen, is the little girl in the centre, dressed in white and presiding demurely over her siblings. Her younger brother Augustus, who died in 1845, is seen on the left, still dressed in skirts and holding a hoop and stick; while their infant sister Louisa, who died in 1846, is seated on the right, coyly displaying a naked foot.
The picture dates from the early 1840s, but it is hard to be more precise as the records are very confused. The canvas bears a date, but the last figure is hard to read; it may or may not be a 3, and perhaps this is an unlikely date anyway as Brown seems to have been in Paris that year, only returning to England in 1844. When the picture was exhibited at Brown's memorial exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1897, it was dated 1841; and Hueffer complicates matters still further by listing it twice, under both 1840 and 1845. Was this an oversight, or was he referring to two pictures? (Both are said to have been painted at Meopham and to have belonged to William Michael Rossetti, so either could be the present work). It is also curious that Hueffer gives these dates when it is natural to assume that our picture was painted when the Browns were staying with the Bromleys in 1844. And if this was the case, then is it not odd that the picture does not include a fourth child, Elizabeth Clara, who was born to Augustus and Helen in 1843 (and died in 1875)? All we can say for certain is that the picture must have been painted before little Augustus Bromley's death in 1845.
Stylistically, the work is comparable to The Bromley Family, Brown's group portrait of the older generation now in the Manchester City Art Gallery (Fig.1). This is perhaps a little more mannered (Germanic?), but the use of trees as a framing agent is similar in both paintings. The Bromley Family, though not listed by Hueffer, is dated 1844, and since it was presumably painted when Brown was staying with the family that year, it would seem to reinforce the conclusion that our picture was too. The Manchester picture itself, however, is not without its problems. According to Paden, Augustus Bromley, the children's father, was born in 1815 and died in 1843, a year before The Bromley Family, in which he is said to appear, was painted. Paden also implies that his wife Helen (née Weir) was born in 1802. This would make her thirteen years older than her husband, which not only seems unlikely but does not obviously correspond with any of the women in the Manchester painting.
Whatever the answers to these conundrums, our picture, with its sombre tonality, stagey lighting and romantic background, betrays Brown's early grounding in the European academic tradition. During the 1830s he received a thorough training in Belgium, first under two pupils of David, Albert Gregorius in Bruges and Pieter van Hansel in Ghent, and then under Gustave, Baron Wappers at the Antwerp Academy. The picture's lush style also reflects Brown's recent experiences in Paris, where he had studied Rembrandt and the Spanish masters in the Louvre, as well as modern works by Delacroix, Delaroche, and others. By 1845 his style was changing dramatically, partly as a result of designing cartoons for the Westminster Hall competitions, but more significantly under the influence of Holbein, whose work he saw at Basle on the way south to Rome, and the early Italian and Nazarene paintings which he encountered in Rome itself. A more realistic and naturally illuminated style was unveiled in his early masterpiece, Chaucer at the Court of Edward III (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), conceived in the summer of 1845 and designed in Rome later that year; and by the time this was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, Brown had long since met D.G. Rossetti and begun his close association with the Pre-Raphaelites.
The first owner of The Bromley Children was presumably Helen Bromley, the children's mother. She later ran a school at Greenwich at which Brown's daughter Lucy was educated, and she seems to have left her pictures to the artist, who in due course gave The Bromley Children to Lucy. When Lucy died in 1894, only a year after her father, the picture passed to her husband, William Michael Rossetti, and it has remained in their family ever since.
Fig. 1.
Ford Madox Brown
The Bromley Family
(Manchester City Art Gallery)
During these early years Brown painted a number of portraits of his Bromley relations, who lived at Meopham in Kent. In his memorial account of his grandfather's career, Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford) describes how the artist stayed with the Bromleys during a visit to England in March 1840. 'Here [i.e. at Meopham] he painted portraits of all his relations there resident. They are mostly quaint little medallions'. The sitters included his cousin Elizabeth, and it was the painting of this portrait, according to Heuffer, that 'caused an ensnaring of hearts' and the subsequent marriage of the artist and his subject, 'which took place the same year in Paris' (op. cit., p. 26). Other portraits are said to have been undertaken in 1844 when the Browns were staying with the Bromleys at Meopham, seeing if Elizabeth's health would stand the English climate. During the stay, Hueffer tells us, Brown painted Elizabeth's brother Augustus, his wife Helen, and their horse (op. cit., pp., 37, 434).
According to W.D. Paden (loc. cit.), the three eldest children of Augustus and Helen, that is to say the sitters in our picture, were all born before 1841. Helen, who died in 1855 aged seventeen, is the little girl in the centre, dressed in white and presiding demurely over her siblings. Her younger brother Augustus, who died in 1845, is seen on the left, still dressed in skirts and holding a hoop and stick; while their infant sister Louisa, who died in 1846, is seated on the right, coyly displaying a naked foot.
The picture dates from the early 1840s, but it is hard to be more precise as the records are very confused. The canvas bears a date, but the last figure is hard to read; it may or may not be a 3, and perhaps this is an unlikely date anyway as Brown seems to have been in Paris that year, only returning to England in 1844. When the picture was exhibited at Brown's memorial exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1897, it was dated 1841; and Hueffer complicates matters still further by listing it twice, under both 1840 and 1845. Was this an oversight, or was he referring to two pictures? (Both are said to have been painted at Meopham and to have belonged to William Michael Rossetti, so either could be the present work). It is also curious that Hueffer gives these dates when it is natural to assume that our picture was painted when the Browns were staying with the Bromleys in 1844. And if this was the case, then is it not odd that the picture does not include a fourth child, Elizabeth Clara, who was born to Augustus and Helen in 1843 (and died in 1875)? All we can say for certain is that the picture must have been painted before little Augustus Bromley's death in 1845.
Stylistically, the work is comparable to The Bromley Family, Brown's group portrait of the older generation now in the Manchester City Art Gallery (Fig.1). This is perhaps a little more mannered (Germanic?), but the use of trees as a framing agent is similar in both paintings. The Bromley Family, though not listed by Hueffer, is dated 1844, and since it was presumably painted when Brown was staying with the family that year, it would seem to reinforce the conclusion that our picture was too. The Manchester picture itself, however, is not without its problems. According to Paden, Augustus Bromley, the children's father, was born in 1815 and died in 1843, a year before The Bromley Family, in which he is said to appear, was painted. Paden also implies that his wife Helen (née Weir) was born in 1802. This would make her thirteen years older than her husband, which not only seems unlikely but does not obviously correspond with any of the women in the Manchester painting.
Whatever the answers to these conundrums, our picture, with its sombre tonality, stagey lighting and romantic background, betrays Brown's early grounding in the European academic tradition. During the 1830s he received a thorough training in Belgium, first under two pupils of David, Albert Gregorius in Bruges and Pieter van Hansel in Ghent, and then under Gustave, Baron Wappers at the Antwerp Academy. The picture's lush style also reflects Brown's recent experiences in Paris, where he had studied Rembrandt and the Spanish masters in the Louvre, as well as modern works by Delacroix, Delaroche, and others. By 1845 his style was changing dramatically, partly as a result of designing cartoons for the Westminster Hall competitions, but more significantly under the influence of Holbein, whose work he saw at Basle on the way south to Rome, and the early Italian and Nazarene paintings which he encountered in Rome itself. A more realistic and naturally illuminated style was unveiled in his early masterpiece, Chaucer at the Court of Edward III (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), conceived in the summer of 1845 and designed in Rome later that year; and by the time this was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, Brown had long since met D.G. Rossetti and begun his close association with the Pre-Raphaelites.
The first owner of The Bromley Children was presumably Helen Bromley, the children's mother. She later ran a school at Greenwich at which Brown's daughter Lucy was educated, and she seems to have left her pictures to the artist, who in due course gave The Bromley Children to Lucy. When Lucy died in 1894, only a year after her father, the picture passed to her husband, William Michael Rossetti, and it has remained in their family ever since.
Fig. 1.
Ford Madox Brown
The Bromley Family
(Manchester City Art Gallery)