Monday, June 16, 2008

Pre-Raphaelite South London (2): Ford Madox Brown and Emma Hill



The Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown and his lover (later wife) Emma Hilll lived in Stockwell in 1851/2. His famous picture The Pretty Baa Lambs was painted in the Stockwell garden. Brown recalled: '"The Baa-lamb’s picture was painted almost entirely in sunlight which twice gave me a fever while painting. I used to take the lay figure out every morning and bring it in if it rained, my painting room being on the level with the Garden. Emma (his wife) sat for the lady and Kate (his daughter) for the child. The lambs and sheep used to be brought every morning from Clapham Common in a truck. One of them ate up all the flowers one morning in the Garden, and they used to behave very ill. " (I haven't been able to find the address of the Stockwell cottage - anybody know?).

Source: Jan Marsh, Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood (London: Quartet, 1985)

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