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拍品專文
The drawing remained in Rossetti's possession until his death and appeared in his studio sale at Christie's, where it was described as a 'Female Study - Head and shoulders: profile, hair in a net. c.1863'. This is accurate so far as it goes, but the sitter can be identified as Agnes (Aggie) Manetti, one of the many young women of good looks, humble origin and easy virtue who acted as Rossetti's models in the 1860s. Fanny Cornforth, his mistress and housekeeper at 16 Cheyne Walk, is the best known of these sitters, but Ellen Smith, Annie Miller and Ada Vernon were others. Aggie Manetti, who was sometimes ungallantly known as 'Fatty Aggie', was, according to William Michael Rossetti, a Scotswoman with 'a most energetic as well as beautiful profile, not without some analogy to that of the great Napoleon'. As Virginia Surtees has observed, 'it is difficult to reconcile her surname, Manetti, with her Scottish blood, but perhaps she had acquired the name by marriage'.
Like so many of these models, Aggie appears in the diaries of G.P. Boyce, who seems to have been a little in love with them all. He records that she was sitting to Rossetti by 22 October 1862, when he saw 'divers drawings of 'Fatty' Aggie M' in the artist's studio. On 18 January 1863 she posed for Boyce himself. 'Agnes Manetti came to breakfast. I made a pen and ink sketch of her and gave her a little Florentine mosaic brooch.'
Aggie has been associated with several of Rossetti's pictures of the early 1860s. Perhaps the most convincing are The Laurel, a drawing of a seated girl holding a sprig of the eponymous shrub (Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford, 1971, vol. 1, p. 98, no. 172; for an illustration, see A Pre-Raphaelite Passion: The Private Collection of L.S. Lowry, exh. Manchester City Art Gallery, 1977, cat. no. 5) and Sweet Tooth, a watercolour of a girl eating grapes (Surtees, Addenda 123). When William Michael Rossetti was approached by the owner of Sweet Tooth in July 1904, he replied: 'I recollect very well the person from whom this watercolour was painted. She was a Scotswoman in London, with a handsome pleasing face, more especially a fine profile. She was not of the 'respectable' class, nor yet a regular artist's model. I forget her surname. Her Christian name was Agnes, and she was known as 'Aggie' in my Brother's immediate circle. My Brother painted from her 2 or 3 times, and drew from her several times, in 1864 - not I think earlier than that year, and scarcely later. His principal painting from her (watercolour) is named 'Monna Pomona': this 'Sweet Tooth' is nearly or quite as good'. William Michael was writing long after the event, and his memory was not faultless. We know that Aggie was sitting to Rossetti before 1864, and the model for Monna Pomona, a watercolour of that year (Tate Gallery; Surtees, 171) was probably not her but Ada Vernon. Nonetheless he seems to have been right in saying that Sweet Tooth was painted from Aggie.
The present drawing does not appear in Virginia Surtees' catalogue, although this does include three other studies of Aggie, nos. 262-4 (figs. 2-4). At least two more drawings of her are also known, one sold in these Rooms on 11 July 1972, lot 53 (fig. 1), the other on 25 March 1994, lot 342 (illustrated in catalogue). The earliest of these drawings would appear to be the one we sold in 1972 (fig. 1). Not only does the handling suggest this but the sitter seems younger and less polished than she does in any of the others. It would not be hard to see her as a raw Scots lass who has got herself to London but views her new environment with a certain suspicion, all too aware of the traps that lie in wait for a girl like herself in the wicked metropolis. She is perhaps not much older in Surtees 262 (fig. 2), a drawing which shows her Napoleonic profile very clearly. Her abundant hair hangs freely, perhaps released from its snood by Rossetti himself, and she wears a cape which it is tempting to imagine is made of Scottish plaid.
In Surtees 263 and 264 (figs. 3-4) a change has taken place. The model seems much more sophisticated, partly, no doubt, because Rossetti is glamourising her, but also, one suspects, because she has more self-confidence, having made her mark with men like Rossetti and Boyce. Finally, in the present drawing she seems to have moved on again, to become a mature, assured and relaxed young woman. The drawing we sold in 1994, though much sketchier, projects the same image, as does The Laurel, if indeed that drawing shows Aggie and not Ada Vernon, the other model who has been suggested for it.
Such a transformation must have taken time. Perhaps the first of these drawings (fig. 1) was made in 1862, the year Boyce records Aggie sitting to Rossetti, and the last, including ours, in 1864, the year to which The Laurel is now generally assigned. This is, however, only a hypothesis based on limited data. Aggie remains something of a mystery, and no doubt always will.
Like so many of these models, Aggie appears in the diaries of G.P. Boyce, who seems to have been a little in love with them all. He records that she was sitting to Rossetti by 22 October 1862, when he saw 'divers drawings of 'Fatty' Aggie M' in the artist's studio. On 18 January 1863 she posed for Boyce himself. 'Agnes Manetti came to breakfast. I made a pen and ink sketch of her and gave her a little Florentine mosaic brooch.'
Aggie has been associated with several of Rossetti's pictures of the early 1860s. Perhaps the most convincing are The Laurel, a drawing of a seated girl holding a sprig of the eponymous shrub (Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford, 1971, vol. 1, p. 98, no. 172; for an illustration, see A Pre-Raphaelite Passion: The Private Collection of L.S. Lowry, exh. Manchester City Art Gallery, 1977, cat. no. 5) and Sweet Tooth, a watercolour of a girl eating grapes (Surtees, Addenda 123). When William Michael Rossetti was approached by the owner of Sweet Tooth in July 1904, he replied: 'I recollect very well the person from whom this watercolour was painted. She was a Scotswoman in London, with a handsome pleasing face, more especially a fine profile. She was not of the 'respectable' class, nor yet a regular artist's model. I forget her surname. Her Christian name was Agnes, and she was known as 'Aggie' in my Brother's immediate circle. My Brother painted from her 2 or 3 times, and drew from her several times, in 1864 - not I think earlier than that year, and scarcely later. His principal painting from her (watercolour) is named 'Monna Pomona': this 'Sweet Tooth' is nearly or quite as good'. William Michael was writing long after the event, and his memory was not faultless. We know that Aggie was sitting to Rossetti before 1864, and the model for Monna Pomona, a watercolour of that year (Tate Gallery; Surtees, 171) was probably not her but Ada Vernon. Nonetheless he seems to have been right in saying that Sweet Tooth was painted from Aggie.
The present drawing does not appear in Virginia Surtees' catalogue, although this does include three other studies of Aggie, nos. 262-4 (figs. 2-4). At least two more drawings of her are also known, one sold in these Rooms on 11 July 1972, lot 53 (fig. 1), the other on 25 March 1994, lot 342 (illustrated in catalogue). The earliest of these drawings would appear to be the one we sold in 1972 (fig. 1). Not only does the handling suggest this but the sitter seems younger and less polished than she does in any of the others. It would not be hard to see her as a raw Scots lass who has got herself to London but views her new environment with a certain suspicion, all too aware of the traps that lie in wait for a girl like herself in the wicked metropolis. She is perhaps not much older in Surtees 262 (fig. 2), a drawing which shows her Napoleonic profile very clearly. Her abundant hair hangs freely, perhaps released from its snood by Rossetti himself, and she wears a cape which it is tempting to imagine is made of Scottish plaid.
In Surtees 263 and 264 (figs. 3-4) a change has taken place. The model seems much more sophisticated, partly, no doubt, because Rossetti is glamourising her, but also, one suspects, because she has more self-confidence, having made her mark with men like Rossetti and Boyce. Finally, in the present drawing she seems to have moved on again, to become a mature, assured and relaxed young woman. The drawing we sold in 1994, though much sketchier, projects the same image, as does The Laurel, if indeed that drawing shows Aggie and not Ada Vernon, the other model who has been suggested for it.
Such a transformation must have taken time. Perhaps the first of these drawings (fig. 1) was made in 1862, the year Boyce records Aggie sitting to Rossetti, and the last, including ours, in 1864, the year to which The Laurel is now generally assigned. This is, however, only a hypothesis based on limited data. Aggie remains something of a mystery, and no doubt always will.