The Mentor: The Wife in Art, Vol. 1, Num. 28, Serial No. 28
Date: 2015-09-06T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Artists -- Relations with women; Artists' spouses

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Title: The Mentor: The Wife in Art, Vol. 1, Num. 28, Serial No. 28

Author: Gustav Kobbé

Release date: September 6, 2015 [eBook #49892]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MENTOR: THE WIFE IN ART, VOL. 1, NUM. 28, SERIAL NO. 28 ***

The Mentor, No. 28, The Wife in Art

The Mentor

“A wise and Faithful Guide and Friend”

Vol. 1 No. 28

THE WIFE IN ART

LUCREZIA FEDI—
ANDREA DEL SARTO

LUCREZIA BUTI—
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

HELENA FOURMENT—
RUBENS

SASKIA VAN ULENBURG—
REMBRANDT

MARIA RUTHVEN—
VAN DYCK

ELIZABETH SIDDAL—
ROSSETTI

By GUSTAV KOBBÉ

It may be that he who rides alone rides fastest; and that the man encumbered with wife and family feels his pace slacken and the goal as far away as ever. Andrea (ahn´-dree-ah) del Sarto, in the closing lines of Browning’s poem, utters the same thought. He is addressing his wife, Lucrezia Fedi, whose extravagant and wayward tastes, many think, ruined his career and prevented his ranking with Leonardo (lay-o-nar´-do), Raphael (rah´-fay-ell), and Angelo (ahn´-jel-o):

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—

Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel’s reed,
For Leonard, Raphael, Angelo, and me
To cover—the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So—still they overcome
Because there’s still Lucrezia,—as I choose.

LUCREZIA FEDI, BY DEL SARTO

In the Royal Gallery, Berlin.

And so, in that supreme painting contest with his three rivals, he still is distanced, “because there’s still Lucrezia” (loo-crate´-see-ah). But note that he adds, “as I choose.” He had rather fail with her than triumph without her.

Indeed, my point in mentioning Andrea and Lucrezia is to assert that he rode faster for not riding alone; that he was not the equal of the three artists he aspired to rival; and that, if it is sometimes thought he might have rivaled them, this is due to the works he painted under the inspiration of his love for Lucrezia. She kept him in a constant state of impecuniosity and jealousy; but it was “as I choose.” And well it might have been! His art seems to rise to a higher plane from the moment her dark, imperious beauty—a new note in religious painting—looks out at us from works like the “Madonna of the Harpies” and the youthful Saint John. For from her face he painted the faces not only of women, but also of boys and youths, and always it is her beauty that dominates the picture.

ANDREA DEL SARTO, BY HIMSELF

In the Pitti Gallery, Florence.

INFLUENCE OF THE WIFE

If she, in character the worst kind of wife a man can have, so inspired her husband, how rare and exquisite must have been the influence of Lucrezia Buti (boo´tee) over Fra Filippo Lippi (lip´pee), of Helena Fourment (hel-en-ah fur´-ment) over Rubens (roo-benz), of Maria Ruthven over Van Dyck, of Saskia over Rembrandt, of Elizabeth Siddal over Rossetti! For these women were devoted to their artist-husbands, and were in turn adored by them. Doubtful, indeed, if any of these men would have subscribed to the doctrine that he rides fastest who rides alone.

Lucrezia Buti, who was the wife of Fra Filippo Lippi, must not be confused with the Lucrezia Fedi (fay´-dee) whom Andrea married. Moreover, the circumstances under which Fra Filippo wooed and won his Lucrezia were far more romantic. He was a man whose great talent manifested itself early in life, and, although he had been put in a monastery because his relatives were too poor to educate him, his evident genius for art earned him many liberties. In fact, he was decidedly gay, and the hero of numerous escapades, the most famous of which has been immortalized by Browning, who found in the two Italian artists, Andrea and Lippo, subjects for two of his finest poems.

DETAIL OF THE VIRGIN AND CHILD BY FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

Lucrezia Buti was the model for the Virgin.

FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

The adventure of which Browning writes occurred upon the triumphant return to Florence of Cosimo de’ Medici (med´-e-chee) and his patronage of Fra Filippo. Cosimo, frequently annoyed by the friar’s loose habits, and despairing of his ever finishing an important picture that he had commissioned him to paint, caused him to be locked up in a room of the Medici Palace. Fra Filippo stood this for a few days. Then one night, wearying of his confinement, he escaped. The friar’s own pleading in Browning’s poem tells the story:

I could not paint all night—
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.
There came a hurry of feet and little feet,

A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song—

… Round they went.

Scarce had they turned the corner with a titter,

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,—three slim shapes,

And a face that look’d up.… Zooks, Sir, flesh and blood,

That’s all I’m made of! Into shreds it went,
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
All the bed furniture—a dozen knots,
There was a ladder! Down I let myself

Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,

And after them.

Notwithstanding his conduct, so out of keeping with his cloth, he was appointed chaplain to the nuns of the convent of Santa Margherita (mahr´-gare-ee-tah) in Prato (prah´-to) and commissioned by the abbess to paint a picture of the Madonna for the altar of the convent church. It chanced that there was in the nunnery a novice to whom convent life was just as ill suited as monastic life would have been to Fra Filippo had he been obliged to abide by its tenets.

FILIPPO AND LUCREZIA BUTI

The name of the novice was Lucrezia Buti, and, struck by the grace and beauty of this young woman, the artist begged that she might be allowed to pose for him for the picture, and the request was granted. It may indeed have been diplomacy on the part of the abbess; for it is not unlikely that Lucrezia, who had no vocation whatsoever for conventual life, had proved herself refractory, and that the convent authorities saw a chance of getting rid of her, which they could not do by returning her to her family, because she had been consigned to them against her will by a stepbrother, anxious to get rid of her care and expense. In any event, the friar Lippi fell in love with her and she with him. Profiting by the crowd and confusion attendant on the festival of the Madonna of the Girdle, which is celebrated in Prato on the first of May, Fra Filippo carried off Lucrezia, appealed to his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, and through the latter’s intercession received from the Pope, Pius II., a special brief, absolving both himself and the novice from their ecclesiastical vows and granting them dispensation to marry. He and Lucrezia had two children; their son, Filippino Lippi, more than rivaling his father’s fame as a painter. The Madonna that Fra Filippo painted for the convent may still be seen in Prato, and there are other pictures in which Lucrezia’s lovely face is discernible.

THE TWO WIVES OF RUBENS

PETER PAUL RUBENS, BY HIMSELF

In Windsor Castle, England.

HELENA FOURMENT, BY RUBENS

Rubens was so happy with his first wife, Isabella Brandt, who died after eighteen years of blissful married life with him, that he could not endure the loneliness of being a widower, but four years after Isabella’s death took as his second wife Helena Fourment. This marriage proved to be as happy as the first; although he was already fifty-three and she barely sixteen. Their union was blessed with five handsome children; so that his declining years found him surrounded by youth and beauty, and with a splendid young wife as comrade.

HELENA FOURMENT, BY RUBENS

A portrait of the artist’s second wife and two of their children, hanging in the Louvre, Paris.

During the eighteen years of his first marriage Isabella appeared in nearly all his large pictures. She was of a more refined type than Helena; so that, with his second marriage, when he began to introduce his second wife into his pictures, his style becomes broader and more vigorous. For Helena had a strong, fully developed figure of pronounced contour, rosy flesh tints, golden hair, and lips that seemed always partly open to show the flash of pure white teeth. These were her attractions. She was obviously more beautiful, more brilliant, than Isabella, although in her youth her development was somewhat too luxuriant,—a picture of healthy, bursting, buoyant young womanhood. Indeed, so proud does Rubens seem of having, at his age, won a woman of her pronounced and youthful charms, that in some of his pictures he expresses them too freely, as, for example, in the Helena in a fur pelisse in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna. That Rubens drew a vast amount of inspiration from his two wives, Isabella and Helena, is obvious to anyone familiar with his work; for they appear in picture after picture from his brush. His married life, first with Isabella and then with Helena, was a constant stimulus to his best work.

REMBRANDT AND SASKIA

SASKIA, BY REMBRANDT

Rembrandt, too, was married twice, and although his first wife was refined and aristocratic and his second far from it, having been a servant in his household, he was intensely happy with both and painted them many times. Saskia van Ulenburg, although not strictly speaking a beauty from the casual point of view, lent herself admirably, nevertheless, to pictorial treatment, especially that pictorial treatment of lights and deep shadows of which her husband was the greatest master that ever lived. Indeed, the pictures in which she appears are almost too numerous to mention. There is the delightful portrait of her in the gallery at Cassel, said to have been painted in her own home in 1633, the year before she and Rembrandt were married. Her face in profile, the features delicately delineated, is shown against a background of deep, rich colors. With the lightest touch her wavy chestnut hair lies upon her cheek and forehead. A spray of rosemary in her hand rests across her heart. This, the emblem of a Dutch maiden’s betrothal, tells its own story.

REMBRANDT, BY HIMSELF

In the Royal Gallery, Berlin.

Probably, however, the most famous portrait ever painted of an artist and his wife is that by Rembrandt in the Dresden Gallery, of Saskia seated on his knees while he clasps her waist with his left hand and raises in his right a half-filled glass. The joy on their faces gives witness to the pride and pleasure they found in each other. Saskia was a wealthy woman, and while she lived want never entered Rembrandt’s house. But, alas! she was delicate, and died in 1642, less than a year after giving birth to the son who was christened Titus. Rembrandt had spent much money in filling his house with objects of art,—prints, rich stuffs for costumes, and other things—and not long after Saskia’s death he found himself impoverished. Some idea of the richness of his collections is obtained from the adornments with which Saskia appears in the picture known as the “Jewish Bride,” and in the genre portrait, “Minerve,” in which she is shown as a learned lady in the richest of costumes, seated at a beautiful table and reading from an ancient tome.

Rembrandt ranks with the greatest masters in art. “He rides fastest who rides alone.” Is it possible that Rembrandt could have ridden faster or reached a farther goal without Saskia and Hendrikje?

REMBRANDT AND SASKIA, BY REMBRANDT

In the Royal Gallery, Dresden.

VAN DYCK’S PORTRAIT OF MARIA RUTHVEN

VAN DYCK, BY HIMSELF

This portrait, which hangs in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, shows the artist as a young man.

VAN DYCK, BY HIMSELF

Van Dyck, the favorite pupil of Rubens,—so much so that when some romping pupils in Rubens’ absence brushed against a partly finished picture and marred it he was asked to retouch it in order that the master might not notice the defect,—also was a favorite in the world of women, and much influenced by them. Even in youth a love adventure is said to have sent him from Rubens’ atelier to Italy. In England, where no one is more closely identified than he with the period of Charles I., “die schönen ladies,” as a German writer on Van Dyck expresses it, fairly fought for the honor of being painted by him.

If his works lack the vital vigor and joyous abandon of the typical Flemish masters, it must be remembered that his Italian sojourn, passed largely in court circles, greatly refined his style, and that he, the painter of aristocrats, is also an aristocrat among painters. His output for his short life (1599-1641) was great, and of the 1,500 works catalogued as his 300 are portraits of women. Walpole speaks of their beautiful hands. But Van Dyck had special models for the hands, for those of both the men and the women. The elegance and refinement of his work is, however, undoubted, and, though he lacks the power of a Rembrandt and the tremendous verve of a Rubens, much of his work (within the limitations imposed by elegance) is executed in the “large” manner.

It is said that his ability to accomplish so much was due to the fact that he never allowed a sitter to weary him, obviating this by dismissing them at the end of an hour. At the time appointed for the sitting the artist appeared in his studio. At the end of the hour he rose, made his obeisance, and appointed the hour for the next sitting. A servant cleaned the brushes and reloaded the palette, while the artist received and entertained the next sitter. He had many love affairs in England, and especially one with Margaret Lemon, who threatened, when his love began to cool, to cut off his hand. The world is the richer by a beautiful portrait for this love affair, and fortunately, instead of cutting off his hand or even attempting to, Margaret went to Holland with friends. Van Dyck’s gay life, however, seriously alarmed the king, who, being genuinely attached to him and also admiring his art, feared for his health. Accordingly, his Majesty chose for him a wife, a beautiful young woman, Maria Ruthven, daughter of Lord Ruthven. Van Dyck painted her several times, and one of his best known portraits is that of her with her violoncello, which is in the old Pinakothek (pin´-a-ko-thek), Munich. His married life seems to have been happy, though brief. He died within two years of his nuptials, leaving us the portraits of Maria as souvenirs of his happiness.

MARIA RUTHVEN, BY VAN DYCK

ROSSETTI’S “BLESSED DAMOZEL”

ROSSETTI, BY HIMSELF

Painted in 1855.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was poet as well as painter, buried the manuscript of his poems, although they had been announced for publication, in the coffin of his wife, who died in February, 1862. Not until October, 1869, was the manuscript resurrected and the publication of his poems made possible. It is doubtful if poet or painter has ever paid a greater tribute than Rossetti thus paid to Elizabeth Siddal.

ROSA TRIPLEX, BY ROSSETTI

Rossetti was introduced to Elizabeth by a brother artist, who had discovered her in a milliner’s shop in London. She consented to pose for Rossetti. His brother, in some charming reminiscences of her, writes that to fall in love with Elizabeth Siddal was a very easy performance, and that Dante Gabriel did it at an early date. The name Elizabeth, however, was never on Dante’s lips; but rather Lizzie or Liz, and fully as often Guggums, Guggum, or Gug. Mrs. Hueffer, the younger daughter of Ford Madox-Brown, says that when she was a small child she saw Rossetti at his easel in her father’s house uttering momentarily, in the absence of the beloved one, “Guggum, Guggum!” After awhile “Guggum” became a settled institution in Rossetti’s studio, and other people, his brother included, understood they were not wanted there. Dante was constantly drawing from Guggum, and she designing under his tuition. He was unconventional, and she, if not so originally, became so in the course of her companionship with him. In her appearance, as in her character, she was a remarkable young woman.

THE BEAUTY OF ELIZABETH SIDDAL

ELIZABETH SIDDAL, BY ROSSETTI

The artist’s brother writes of her that she was truly a beautiful girl,—tall, with a stately throat and fine carriage, pink and white complexion, and massive, straight, coppery golden hair. Her heavy-lidded eyes were large and greenish blue. But, as this narrator says, it is not necessary to speak much about her appearance, “as the designs of Dante Rossetti speak for it better than I could do.” Her whole manner, in spite of her great beauty, was reserved, self-controlling, and “alien from approach.” Rossetti’s brother says that her talk was, in his experience, scanty; slight and scattered, with some amusing turns, and little to seize hold upon; little clue to her real self, or anything determinate.

But, alas! the beautiful Elizabeth was a sufferer from consumption, accompanied by neuralgia. For the neuralgia frequent doses of laudanum had been prescribed. Her condition was such toward the end that sometimes she was obliged to take one hundred drops at a time. On February 10, 1866, she dined at a hotel in London with her husband and Swinburne. She and Rossetti returned to their home about eight o’clock. She was about to go to bed at nine, when Dante Gabriel went out again. When he came back at half-past eleven the room was in darkness. He called to his wife; but received no reply. He found her in bed, unconscious. On the table was a vial. It had contained laudanum—it was empty.

He paid her the tribute of burying his poems with her. He had already paid her the great tribute of painting her, and that often. Those large, greenish blue eyes of hers were his guiding stars. Let him who will say that he rides fastest who rides alone. There are six great artists—and many more—to say him nay.

BEATA BEATRIX, BY ROSSETTI

A portrait of Elizabeth Siddal.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Fra Filippo Lippi | Edward C. Strutt
Rembrandt and His Work (8 vols.) | Wilhelm Bode
Rembrandt | R. Muther
The Rossettis | Elisabeth Luther Cary
L’Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens | Maximilian Rooses
Rubens (Masterpieces in Color Series) | S. L. Bensusan
Andrea del Sarto | H. Guinness
Sir Anthony Van Dyck | Lionel Cust

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Subscribers desiring further information concerning this subject can obtain it by writing to

The Mentor Association

381 Fourth Avenue, New York City

LUCREZIA FEDI, By Andrea del Sarto

THE WIFE IN ART
Andrea del Sarto and Lucrezia Fedi

ONE

“The Faultless Painter,” though his paintings seem faultless, led a life that was by no means free from mistakes. All went well with him up to the age of twenty. He was born near Florence in 1486, and when but a seven-year-old goldsmith’s apprentice began to show such skill that he was soon afterward sent to Piero de Cosimo, one of the best artists in Florence. He was only twenty years old when he painted the seven frescos in the Annunziata from the life of Saint Philip.

Andrea was the son of Angelo the tailor. His name, Andrea del Sarto, means “the tailor’s Andrew,” and was not his real name at all, which was Andrea d’Angelo di Francesco. Sometimes he called himself Andrea del Sarto, sometimes Andrea d’Angelo, and again Andrea d’Angelo del Sarto. Andrea made his first great mistake by marrying the widow of a hatmaker. Lucrezia Fedi’s cold face was indeed the glory of his pictures, where she is nearly always to be seen in the robes of virgin, saint, or angel. As his model she was all that could be desired; yet when he married her the “faultless painter” lost many of his best friends and pupils, and worst of all the ideals of art. Blinded by her beauty, he could not see the failings that were plain to everyone else. All his life Andrea worked hard to support her and her sisters in their extravagances. Yet he went on painting faultlessly.

His fame spread so far that King Francis I invited him to France, and gave him important commissions there. But Lucrezia persuaded him to return to Italy. He was granted a month in which to return and bring his wife to France. Francis also intrusted him with money to buy Italian works of art for the royal palace.

A month passed. Andrea did not return; but purchased a plot of ground in Florence with the king’s money, and on it built a house for Lucrezia. King Francis never received his paintings, and the “faultless painter” had thrown away a chance of achieving supreme greatness.

In 1531 Andrea del Sarto died of the plague. As he lay on his deathbed Lucrezia fled from the house for fear of infection. Yet he left her all his property, and, so far as known, never ceased to believe in her.

Lucrezia lived forty years after the death of her husband. A former pupil of Andrea’s was at work one day copying frescos, when a withered old woman came into the hall. She asked him who had painted the fresco.

He replied, “Andrea del Sarto.”

“I was the original of that angel,” she said. “I was Lucrezia Fedi, the wife of Andrea del Sarto.”

Even to the last she was proud of the husband whom she had deserted on his deathbed, and whose genius she alone had dwarfed.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

THE VIRGIN ADORING THE CHILD. By Fra Filippo Lippi

PAINTED FROM LUCREZIA BUTI

THE WIFE IN ART
Fra Lippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti

TWO

The painter of divine beauties, Filippo Lippi, or as he is often called, Fra Lippo Lippi, was not himself a handsome man. He had rather a full face, large features, and thick lips. Laziness and love were always interfering with his work. As a result of extravagance he was usually in debt, and not always careful to get out honestly. Yet the people of his time were kind-hearted enough to overlook boyish faults in an artist who brought so much renown to their country.

Filippo was born into a Florentine butcher’s family about 1402, and his father died soon afterward. He seems to have had little care from his mother, who may, however, have died during his infancy. An aunt took care of him; but, finding the boy too great a burden for her slender means, turned him over to be educated by the Carmelite friars. The abbot was lenient; for he had the wisdom to see that a boy who drew pictures all over the walls and on his books when he should have been studying would probably become an artist. Artists were highly thought of in those days, when the church taught by means of pictures. Filippo, therefore, never learned to write good Latin. He studied the frescos of the chapel instead. Later, when he had finished his studies and gained a name for himself among painters, the abbot granted him permission to leave the monastery in order to give his genius full scope. Monks who had learned to paint were often allowed this privilege.

So Fra Filippo became a great painter. When he went to Prato and saw Lucrezia Buti he was already nearly fifty years old, while she was hardly more than twenty. She also was an orphan. Her father, who had been a silk merchant in Florence, left his daughters in the care of Antonio Buti: evidently a harsh guardian, for he put Lucrezia and Spinetta, both beautiful girls, into the convent of Santa Margherita against their will, in order to save himself some expense. Filippo saw her, used her as a model, and later married her by permission of the Pope. The virgins and saints of his paintings had a new spiritual radiance after he saw Lucrezia’s face. He used her for all manner of subjects, from the Virgin to the “Dancing Daughter of Herodias,” changing her features to suit as many different characters.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

HELENA FOURMENT. By Rubens

THE WIFE IN ART
Peter Paul Rubens and Helena Fourment

THREE

The extraordinary beauty of Helena Fourment won for her the love of a world famous painter when she was only sixteen years old. Peter Paul Rubens married this girl, and immortalized her charms on many a precious canvas. It was a most fortunate match. Helena was not only beautiful; she had also every attraction of nature and education, and belonged to a wealthy family. Rubens was a widower, and one of the most celebrated painters in Europe. More than that, he was a distinguished and successful statesman.

Fortunate throughout his life, brilliant, handsome, and of good family, Rubens was never in doubt of his future. His talent for painting showed itself in boyhood. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy, where he soon attracted the notice of the Duke of Mantua. Partly as art expert, partly as diplomat, he went in the Duke’s service to all the important cities of Italy. He spent eight years in that country, sometimes painting for his patron, but more often travelling on political missions.

Recalled to Antwerp by the serious illness of his mother in 1608, Rubens arrived too late to see her again alive, and, no doubt feeling the strength of home ties, resigned from the service of the Duke immediately. High positions and great honors awaited him in his native city. His fame grew year by year.

Isabella Brandt became his wife in 1608. She is described as a rather heavy Flemish woman, and her face and figure appear frequently in Rubens’ work of that period. After her death and before his second marriage he was called upon to arrange terms of peace between England and Spain. It was the most important event of his life. In Spain he met Velasquez and earned the friendship of King Philip. He was honored in England by Charles I, who presented him with a string of valuable diamonds in appreciation of his services. The painter also strengthened a friendship already established with the Duke of Buckingham.

After the successes abroad Rubens retired to a home in the country, devoting himself more than ever to the work of painting. An alchemist went to him one day, claiming to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, which turned everything it touched into gold.

“But,” objected Rubens, “I have discovered it myself.”

“The philosopher’s stone?” exclaimed his visitor.

“Yes, and you shall see it,” answered the painter.

Leading the astonished guest into his studio, Rubens showed his palette.

Helena Fourment was still young when Rubens died. She did not remain long in widowhood; but married the Count of Bergeyck, with whom, so far as is known, she lived in peace and happiness.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

SASKIA VAN ULENBURG. By Rembrandt

THE WIFE IN ART
Rembrandt and Saskia Van Ulenburg

FOUR

Rembrandt Van Rijn and Saskia Van Ulenburg were married in 1634. Saskia, the daughter of a rather wealthy burgomaster who had died some years before, had been living with one after another of her sisters; for they, were all married except herself. Once when she was in Amsterdam a relative, who was posing for a portrait, took her to Rembrandt’s studio, where she met the sullen Hollander and saw him at his work. He must have been an odd figure in those days, awkward and shy, doing everything in his own queer way. Saskia returned again and again, making a deep impression on the artist. She posed for him several times. Once she was a queen, another time she was a flower girl. Rembrandt centered his whole thought and energy upon her, and as he had just passed the first breathing spell of success they were soon able to marry.

Saskia thought only of her husband’s happiness. He in turn was so deeply in love with her that he spent most of his leisure hours painting her portrait and much of his money buying jewels and gold ornaments and rich dresses of every description to adorn her.

Up to the time of his marriage Rembrandt had been stubborn and morose, not caring for society nor for ordinary pleasures. He was born on the outskirts of Leyden in 1607. His father, a miller, was hardly able to give the boy that education which is usually needed to become skilful in art. However, Rembrandt did study under Van Swanenburch, who taught him to draw, paint, and make etchings. He set up a studio in the mill, where he painted portrait after portrait of his mother, his sister, and himself. The artist liked better than anything to paint a well known face over and over again, by new lights and with new expressions.

After his first success, “Lesson in Anatomy,” Rembrandt moved his studio to an old warehouse in Amsterdam. His work became popular. The people of Holland fairly begged for sittings, and soon he was foremost among painters. Yet he paid little attention to anyone but Saskia; and his stubbornness offended patrons and made enemies of those who should have been his friends.

For nine years Rembrandt lived in happiness. Then came misfortune. Extravagance carried him into debt. His children died, and soon after his beloved Saskia followed them. His enemies barred his pictures from exhibitions. At last all his property was sold to satisfy creditors. His paintings went out of fashion. Their owners even used the frames again by covering up Rembrandt’s canvases, of incalculable value, with the work of some other artist whose pictures were in vogue at the time.

A law in Holland now forbids the removal of a “Rembrandt” from that country. His countrymen feel that no honor is too high to bestow on the memory of that unfortunate artist who in 1669 died unrecognized and was buried by charity.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

MARIA RUTHVEN. By Van Dyck

THE WIFE IN ART
Anthony Van Dyck and Maria Ruthven

FIVE

Anthony Van Dyck’s marriage might be called one of convenience. He married Maria Ruthven because King Charles I, of England, wishing him to settle down, decided on a wife for him. The courtly painter was a spendthrift. He loved company and entertainment, was handsome, refined, well dressed, and, all things considered, a thorough gentleman. He attracted to his society the greatest of English nobility. Gossip had him in love with so many of the court ladies that the king, fearing his portrait painter would get into serious difficulties, determined once for all to save him by a marriage with a Scottish beauty in the queen’s retinue.

Van Dyck offered no objection. The lady, Maria Ruthven, was young and very beautiful. Although she brought no dowry except that given by royal generosity, she was considered a very good match for the artist, who came of burgher stock. Maria’s family was related to the Stuarts; but had been for a long time in disgrace. Van Dyck’s only claim to distinction was his art.

His father, a well-to-do merchant in Antwerp, where Van Dyck was born in 1599, gave Anthony every opportunity to follow up the art of painting. The boy was for several years a pupil of Rubens, whom he made a little jealous by his success in portrait painting. Some of his pictures were better than Rubens’. A few years in Italy gave Van Dyck a still higher position among artists. Some said he was the best portrait painter in Europe.

Yet in spite of his skill Van Dyck was disliked by most painters. They lounged around the taverns in ragged clothes, put on boorish manners, and made fun of any kind of refinement. To this behavior he was entirely opposed. They called him the “Cavalier Painter” because he saw only the noble side of life, and ignored what was low or common. One could hardly have been found who was better fitted by nature to live and paint among the light-hearted courtiers of Charles I. He welcomed an offer from England, and left Antwerp to make his home thereafter on foreign soil.

When he married Maria Ruthven, Van Dyck was forty years old. He painted some portraits of her; but not many, for his death was near at hand. A journey to Paris, in the hope of receiving important commissions there, failed in its object, and brought on a severe attack of the disease from which he had been suffering for years.

The painter returned to England. King Charles offered his physician three hundred pounds if he could save Van Dyck’s life; but to no purpose. He died the second year after his marriage, one of the greatest portrait painters that ever lived. To his wife he left a considerable fortune, which he had managed to save in spite of an extravagant life. Maria afterward married Sir Richard Pryse, a Welsh baronet.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

THE BLESSED DAMOSEL. By Rossetti

PAINTED FROM ELIZABETH SIDDAL

THE WIFE IN ART
Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal

SIX

One day when Rossetti was painting in his studio, Deverell, a fellow artist, rushed in and exclaimed that he had found the ideal woman. She was working in a milliner’s shop, he said; but she was a wonderful girl of stately dignity, with blue-green eyes and coppery tinted hair. This girl was Elizabeth Siddal, and from that time on she was the model for Rossetti’s mystical dreams in color. She later became his wife.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in England in 1828, the son of an Italian refugee. His parents lived simply, almost in poverty, but with refinement suited to the fostering of art and poetry in their children. The mother believed that one good picture on a plain wall was more beautiful than many worthless decorations. Rossetti used this simplicity in his paintings. He and a number of other artists formed the Preraphaelite Brotherhood. This was an organization that took a love of simplicity as its motto, and believed in using simplicity in everything.

Besides being an artist of great genius, Rossetti was a poet. He and his sister Christina were the leaders in the Preraphaelite movement in poetry. Before he was nineteen he wrote “The Blessed Damozel,” a poem that expressed his ideal in womanhood. Elizabeth Siddal proved to be his ideal woman. Ruskin spoke of her as a “noble, glorious creature.” Later the artist painted a picture to go with the poem, and his model was Elizabeth Siddal.

When Rossetti first asked her to pose for him the ideal beauty thought that he wanted her for fashion plates. She little thought that she was to be made the object of a great artist’s lifework.

Her death plunged Rossetti into lifelong misery, almost insanity. Up to the moment of his own death in 1882 he never ceased to grieve for her.

“Her eyes were deeper than the depth

Of waters stilled at even.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, NO. 28, SERIAL NO. 28

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Table of Contents

- The Mentor, No. 28, The Wife in Art

- THE WIFE IN ART

- INFLUENCE OF THE WIFE
- FILIPPO AND LUCREZIA BUTI
- THE TWO WIVES OF RUBENS
- REMBRANDT AND SASKIA
- VAN DYCK’S PORTRAIT OF MARIA RUTHVEN
- ROSSETTI’S “BLESSED DAMOZEL”
- THE BEAUTY OF ELIZABETH SIDDAL
- SUPPLEMENTARY READING

- THE WIFE IN ART Andrea del Sarto and Lucrezia Fedi

- THE WIFE IN ART Fra Lippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti

- THE WIFE IN ART Peter Paul Rubens and Helena Fourment

- THE WIFE IN ART Rembrandt and Saskia Van Ulenburg

- THE WIFE IN ART Anthony Van Dyck and Maria Ruthven

- THE WIFE IN ART Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE