Self portrait .1849. Walter Howell Deverell

Walter Howell Deverell - A Pet exhibited 1853

When this picture was first exhibited it was accompanied by a quotation from 'Leaves from the Note-Book of a Naturalist' by W.J.Broderip: 'But after all, it is very questionable kindness to make a pet of a creature so essentially volatile.' An early associate of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Deverell's first pictures were characterised by their clarity of vision. 'A Pet', with its more painterly approach and with a subject which recalls fashionable 'fancy portraits', shows Deverell moving towards the mainstream of British art. Deverell died young. His memory was much cherished by friends and associates. In 1895, Burne-Jones and his wife bought 'A Pet' partly 'as a link with a time of which we had often thought'.

A Scene from As You Like It - Walter Howell Deverell 1853

Walter Howell Deverell - A sheet of head studies drawn by candle light

pencil, unframed
13¼ x 8¾ in. (33.7 x 22.3 cm.); and two studies of a chapel and a half-timbered house both with inscription by William Michael Rossetti 'G' and one further inscribed 'by Maenza' (on the reverse)


The follow lots are from the collection of a descendant of Lucy Madox Brown and W.M. Rossetti (who married in 1874). Lucy Madox Brown was the daughter of Ford Madox Brown and William Michael Rossetti was the brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. All of the drawings except lot 30, which is framed, were previously housed in one folio. We are grateful to Mrs Virginia Surtees, Angela Thirwell and Mary Rossetti Rutterford for their help in preparing this catalogue.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=1939041&sid=62632de3-e778-481e-a531-df02343950ab

Walter Howell Deverell

[Twelth Night, Act II, Scene IV]

http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=7419&name=twelfth-night-act-ii-scene-iv

http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/Deverell.Duke.html

Walter Howell Deverell (1827 – 1854) wasn't a member of the PRB but was friends and closely associated with them. It was Deverell who discovered Lizzie Siddal in the draper's shop where she worked and she is in this picture on the left as Viola. Rossetti was the model for the clown. Orsino was a self-portrait by the artist.

He never actually got to join the PRB and died at the early age of 21 of Bright's disease.

.

It was Mrs Deverell who visited the Siddal's to persuade them that it was okay for Lizzie to model for her son (artist's models were often regarded as or were actually prostitutes at the time). Oddly the Siddal's were related to the Hill's who had a daughter already modelling for Ford Madox Brown (Rossetti's tutor) and was engaged to him. Deverell was very handsome and from a respectable family and this may have been part of the attraction for the family and Lizzie.