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| https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/304063412316555654/Wikimedia Commons |
With the inexorable passing of time, the history of the subjects, muses and models who enabled artists to portray a particular aesthetic is largely lost, blurred, or merely becomes irrelevant to us today. Furthermore, I often think the past is rewritten in order to make it more relatable in the present, seen through the prism of modern-day values and tenets. While this recalibration may offer greater clarity and understanding, it might also lead to a certain amount of distortion. Either way it allows us to reflect, however, which surely cannot be a bad thing.
On my not-so-recent visit to the glorious Edwardian home of Linley Sambourne, the last parts of this grand townhouse that I wandered around, gazed at and wondered over were the bathroom, servants' quarters and the former nursery at the very top of the building. Most of these had been adapted to Linley's professional needs as chief cartoonist for the satirical magazine Punch and his fascination in photography as part of this creative process.
For the benefit of the 21st century visitor, photos and texts were on display so that we might grasp the notion of developing images in a make-shift darkroom, using the family bathtub to process these. Incidently, Linley's wife - Marion - had to make do with a metal bath tub installed in the marital bedroom! Accustomed as we are to shots taken instantaneously and incessantly from the latest screen device never leaving the hand yet enabling us to reach out across the globe, this old method must seem incredibly fiddly and old-fangled. Yet in Linley's day, photography was an incredibly exciting form of technology, enabling the photographer to reproduce the 'there-and-then' with remarkable speed and ease. Used as a complement to the process of painting or drawing, for amateurs keen to experiment and dabble, the possibilities must have seemed endless. For his work, Linley indeed became a firm dabbler in photography, seeking to capture a life-like position or expression required for his latest print and thus demanding help from family, friends and domestic staff to assume a pose for his preparatory sketches. If all else failed, Linley was not above posing himself - presumably asking his wife to take the photo!
Among the numerous prints and accompanying explanations on show at Sambourne House, I noticed references to his street shots, where women from the neighbouring areas had been caught on camera. These were said to have been taken with the subjects aware of the act but some seem a little too 'natural' for this. Either way, Linley left behind a precious legacy of London life frozen in time reflected in the clothing, attitudes and expressions of the women captured 'unstaged' in the moment. Alongside this branch of Linley's photographic interests was an extensive photo archive, focusing largely on nude and semi-nude forms - mostly female. What precisely Marion thought of this aspect of her husband's dabbling is not known, but as collecting and curating such a body of material must have occupied a large amount of time, thought and effort on his part, I think we can safely assume she was not best pleased! Whilst many of the said photos were for reference - to be consulted for use in Classical drawings etc with models dressed in flowing or flimsy clothing - a vast majority must have been for private viewing to which Marion was not party! The thousands of negatives were once kept on a high shelf in Linley's top-floor studio but now are in storage at Sambourne House, Leighton House Museum and Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Museum Archives.
As anything related to past representations of the female form is now generally linked back to misogynistic exploitation of one type or another, there is little chance of these particular images ever forming the basis of an exhibition any time soon. Artists' models must certainly have been prey to all kinds of misuse and manipulation - intentionally and knowingly perhaps on the part of the artist in question - or maybe used and 'let go of' without conscious malice or design, as was the fate for women of all walks of life.
One name that I did observe associated to some of the photos on display at Sambourne House was a certain Hetty Pettigrew (1867-1953). In fact, she figures in many of Linley's images - along with her sister Lily - in various costumes, poses and states of undress. What shines out, however, is the life and feistiness that seems to radiate from her, and on research that spirited streak seems to have been a somewhat defining characteristic, not just of Hetty but also of Lily and the youngest sister, Rose. This trio of girls, once described by Millais as "three little gypsies" and later referred to as 'The Beautiful Miss Pettigrews', were not random photographic models but were the highly-sought-after sitters whose likenesses were depicted by some of the most famous late 19th century English painters. The girls posed for James McNeill Whistler, John Everett Millais, John Singer Sargent, John William Godward, Philip Wilson Steer, William Holman Hunt, Walter Sickert, Augustus John and Theodore Roussel and it is said that in major exhibitions at least one of the girls would be featured in a painting. Not only were the Pettigrews models, they were muses too, with their physical essence used to serve the artistic visions and principles of the Pre- Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements. Yet while the Pettigrews were well known in the artistic circles of Victorian and Edwardian England, relatively little knowledge of them has been passed down to modern times.
Born into a modest family living in Portsmouth, Hetty and her eleven siblings found themselves in dire straits when their father died, leaving his wife unable to meet the household needs. She took the seemingly foolhardy decision to take the family to London on a tip-off that the daughters could possibly earn a livelihood as artists' models. This was not a reckless act to cash in on the girls' beauty since other options were limited and at a time when prostitution was rife, modelling offered a safer, more palatable alternative. But only just.... Indeed, in terms of social acceptance, modelling, like acting was deemed to be just another way to sell flesh and fantasy. Nevertheless, just like the Pre-Raphaelite 'stunners', Hetty had beautiful hair and striking features that inspired the artists who painted her, just as Christina Rossetti remarked in one of her poems, ‘Not as she is, but as she fills his dream’.
Although we might imagine the young Pettigrew girls quickly down-trodden and exploited in their work, this does not seem to be entirely the case, and they soon developed a reputation for not complying to the artists' expectations regarding the rigours of their trade. In 1884, when all three girls posed for Millais for his work An Idyll of 1745, he noted "they just came when they liked, with the characteristic carelessness of their race" - referring to their supposed 'gypsy origins'. Edward Burne-Jones likewise wrote to his fellow artist friend Whistler regarding Lily who "has left me stranded in the middle of work & disappeared, for which if there were justice in England she should be boiled alive". Shortly after the Millais painting, Hetty met the French-born painter Théodore Roussel and this encounter gave rise to work that was considered scandalous at a time when nudity could only be justified by a Classical context. The representation of a naked Hetty, stretched out in a chair reflects a total insouciance for the Victorian morals that guided decent society. The Reading Girl of 1887 outraged the public for its apparent lack of meaning and morality and indeed, it looks rather anachronistic with the reclining, relaxed girl paying no attention whatsoever to the viewer. Of course, it would be necessary to switch the book for a smartphone if the painting were to be truly of our time! From that time onward, Hetty began to pose increasingly without clothing props, especially for Roussel and later Whistler. Towards the end of the 1880s, Lily, some three years younger than Hetty, likewise modelled nude for John William Godward, one of the most notable works being A Pompeian Bath (1890).
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| The Reading Girl - Théodore Roussel 1887 |
It is difficult to know what persuaded the girls to model naked; was it due to shared artistic vision, financial gain or an attempt to please the artist? Whatever their reasons, they would surely have been ostracised from polite society even if acclaimed by artistic circles eager to find models willing to acquiesce. Roussel and Hetty became lovers, yet when widowed, he failed to do the 'decent thing' and marry his model, mistress and mother of his illegitimate child; he went on to betroth another. Stories abound of models, muses and their relationships with the artists or writers who portrayed them at their most intimate and then betrayed at their most vulnerable. Indeed, such intimacy did not seal the bond between them, nor did it guarantee mariage. It was generally the women who paid the price on every level as their lover returned to his wife, even if merely honouring the wedded union in words alone. There must surely have been resentment on the part of such dishonoured girls yet despite being disinclined to pose for Roussel as before, Hetty continued her modelling career for the works of Whistler and the reference photos of Linley Sambourne. Indeed, The Arabian pastel drawing of 1892 was one of Whistler's most erotic works and there are supposedly countless shots of Hetty and Lily posing together for Linley's private collection.
The youngest Pettigrew sister - Rose - also modelled for Whistler but seems to have remained clothed in her poses for his work which frequently focused on mother and child studies. She was alleged to have posed for the sculptor Alfred Gilbert's An Offering to Hymen (1885) and although the work shows a young female body, it is thought that one of the elder sisters had served as model. Rose also modelled for Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942), and many of his most famous Impressionist paintings featured her. It is quite interesting to compare his Japanese gown (1896), with Rose fully dressed in a kimono with Roussel's 1887 painting of Hetty, naked, with a kimono nonchalently thrown over her chair in The Reading Girl! Rose became romantically involved with Steer and they were set to get engaged but the relationship ended and she went on to marry a composer instead. Hetty meanwhile, turned towards sculpture and fell in love with the 'British Rodin', John Tweed but this did not end in mariage either. As for Lily, little clear evidence remains of her personal or professional trajectory.
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| Hetty & Lily (detail)- Linley Sambourne 1891 |
All in all, the Pettigrews are now strangely encapsulated and preserved by the art that caught their idealized physiques and Linley's photos that caught the spark that animated them . Had it not been for these works, and the girls' involvement in their creation, there would be virtually no enduring trace of their existence. Hetty lived to the age of 86 but what kind of life did she live? What of Lily and Rose? Nevertheless, the family line has been continued to the present day with a great nephew - Neil Pettigrew - who was hoping to publish a book on his great aunts - The Beautiful Miss Pettigrews. What an a wonderful account that would be!
