Woolner, Thomas, 1825-1892, Thomas Woolner Letters to John Frederick Lewis, 1863 1914
- CallNumber:
- MSS 53
- Creator:
- Woolner, Thomas, 1825-1892
- Title(s):
- Thomas Woolner Letters to John Frederick Lewis
- Date:
- 1863 1914
- Extent:
- .42 linear feet
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Abstract:
- The collection comprises 15 letters from Thomas Woolner to John Frederick Lewis, written between 1874 and 1876. It also includes 5 letters from Woolner to Lewis’s wife, Marian Harper, one letter from Lewis to dealer William Vokins, and several letters from Woolner’s wife and daughter. The letters primarily concern Lewis’s declining health—he died several months after the last letter in the collection—Woolner’s admiration for Lewis’s painting, updates on the politics of the Royal Academy and Woolner’s ongoing artistic projects, and current exhibitions. Woolner comments on several works, including: J.M.W. Turner’s, Van Goyen, Looking Out for a Subject; Elizabeth Thompson’s Calling the Roll after an Engagement, Crimea; Lewis’s Lion & Lioness and In the Bey’s Garden; and his own monuments to Bishop John Patteson, Sir Cowasjee Jehanghier Readymoney, and Captain James Cook.
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
- AccessRestrict:
- The materials are open for research.
- UseRestrict:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
- BiogHist:
- Thomas Woolner was an English sculptor, poet, and one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Born in 1825 in Suffolk, Woolner began his study of sculpture under William Behnes (1795-1864), exhibited his first works as a teenager, and soon formed bonds with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and others members of the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1852, after some professional difficulty—most significantly, failing to win the competition for a national monument to Wordsworth—Woolner left England to prospect for gold in Australia. He soon returned to sculpting, however, and then to England, where he resumed his work with a portrait medallion of Tennyson and, most importantly, a sculpture of Francis Bacon at Oxford. The latter led to a series of commissions and to increased artistic prominence: Woolner soon bought the home where he would spend the remainder of his life and married Alice Gertrude Waugh, with whom he would have six children. Public statues and memorials continued to form the basis of Woolner’s recognition, though he produced some church memorials, as well as several volumes of poetry. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1871 and would later become a professor, though he never lectured and acquired a reputation for irritability. He died on 7 October 1892. The main recipient of the letters in the collection is John Frederick Lewis, an English painter known for his orientalist depictions of Middle Eastern harems and street scenes. Born in 1804 and trained by his father, an engraver, Lewis established himself as watercolorist, first depicting animals and later picturesque scenes across Europe. He garnered particular attention for his images of Spain, though this changed in 1841 with the beginning of his time in Egypt. There, Lewis modeled his life after his impressions of oriental luxury, and produced numerous portraits, sketches, and other materials that would form the basis of his most prominent work. He married Marian Harper in Alexandria in 1847 and returned to England in 1851. His painting <title>The Hhareem</title> was a high point following his arrival in England—it reflected a fascination with visions of the orient that would dominate Lewis’s output for the remainder of his life. Critics noted the influence on his work of the Pre-Raphaelites, highlighting his use of vibrant color and minute detail, though Lewis himself remained, for much of his later career, physically disconnected from the broader world of art, living and painting in the relative seclusion of his home at Walton-on-Thames. He died in August 1876, after several years of declining health.
- Arrangement:
- The letters are arranged chronologically.
- Genre:
- Exhibitions and Correspondence
- Subject Terms:
- AntiquitiesArtOrientalismPaintersPaintingPhotographyPricesSculptorsSculpture
- Associated Places:
- EgyptFranceGreat BritainHayes (Bromley, London, England)Paris
- Associated People/Groups:
- Aitken, Charles, 1869-1936Armstead, Henry Hugh, 1828-1905Birmingham City Museum and Art GalleryBoxall, William, Sir, 1800-1879Cook, James, 1728-1779Dobson, W. C. T. (William Charles Thomas), 1817-1898Eyre, Vincent, Sir, 1811-1881Foley, John Henry, 1818-1874Gainsborough, Thomas, 1727-1788Gérôme, Jean Léon, 1824-1904Hall, S. C. (Samuel Carter), 1800-1889Hewitt, D.Horton, Joseph, -1927Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 1830-1895Jehanghier, Cowasjee Readymoney, 1812-1878Lewis, John Frederick, 1804-1876Lewis, Marian, approximately 1826-1906Liddon, H. P. (Henry Parry), 1829-1890Patteson, John Coleridge, 1827-1871Pope, G. (Gustave)Pre-Raphaelite BrotherhoodQuain, Richard, 1816-1898Quilter, Cuthbert, Sir, 1841-1911Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain)Salon (Exhibition : Paris, France)Society of Antiquaries of LondonSt. Paul's Cathedral (London, England)Tate GalleryThackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863Vokins, William, 1815-1895Woolner, Alice, 1845-1912Woolner, AmyWoolner, Thomas, 1825-1892
- FindingAidTitle:
- Thomas Woolner Letters to John Frederick Lewis
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/resources/10701
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/resources/10701?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1