Wightick
Manor and Gardens certainly is some dream of an estate. It is open all year
round but with various time entries depending on the season. One of the best
times of the year to admire the domain is probably Halloween.
I
had the opportunity to visit it twice, first on a stormy afternoon perfectly
suiting the somewhat gloomy mood of the season and the next day bathed in
sunlight, enhancing the colour contrasts between the green of the lawns and the
warm autumnal hues.
On
both days, the grounds were resonating with the cries of children following the
pumpkin trail. This holiday was devoted to special outdoor and spooky crafts
events: Wightwick Manor and Gardens truly brought all Hallows Eve through
family-friendly activities.
This
hidden gem is located in the heart of the West Midlands, a couple of miles from
Wolverhampton. Not the easiest to access though, an erratic bus service from
town will stop in front of the Mermaid Pub that one needs to circle to access
the hill. Most enjoyable is that the estate reveals its wonders only when the
ascension is complete. There, one can marvel at the manor towering its
enchanted landscape garden. This features diversities of styles, ranging from
formal borders in the main lawn to wilder woodland in the back. A few architectural
surprises, such as the bridge inspired by the Mathematical one in Cambridge, or
the “sun seat”, embellish these “garden rooms” redesigned by Thomas Mawson in
1904, in line with the Arts and Crafts ideal of craftsmanship and regionalism.
Shapes
are clearly defined, privileging naturalistic treatment of beech trees,
magnolia lifts, rose beds and holly walks. Dense hedging and stonewalls create
the backbone of the park conceived as an essential component of the house.
This
17th century original building was crumbling down when manufacturer
Theodore Mander bought the site. The first construction phase ended in 1887,
the second extension containing the Great Parlour wing took place in 1893. The
triangular gabled rooftops, ochre twist brick chimneys and oak wooden beams aim
at reproducing Elizabethan simplicity. Narrow stained-glass window panes add up
to the pattern of the façades.
Touring
the house with a guide felt like a privilege as the interior normally does not
open before 12 off season. She started with a brief historical account of the
Mander family who had made a fortune from paint and varnish. Influenced by
Oscar Wilde’s lectures on the “House Beautiful” in 1884, Theodore and Flora
decided to decorate the manor with Morris and Co wallpapers, De Morgan
ceramics, Kempe glass and antique furniture. Flora Mander, a gifted embroiderer
herself, established her empire in the drawing room where she entertained
social gatherings. She reached the boudoir, her private sitting room, through a
small secret door.
The
different sets of rooms changed functions over the course of time. From the
onset, Wightwick Manor had modern facilities: central heating and electricity.
The library, also a study, holds books reflecting the Manders’ concerns for art,
literature and politics. The billiard room was initially used by men to play
after dinner, but by the 1930s, females would join as well. “No cat or person
here” declare certain labels displayed on sofas, while other cushions with
stitched cats grant you the right to sit, some remembrance of Lady Mander’s
love for pets and how she forbade visitors to remove them from chairs because
of their claws.
Bedrooms
upstairs were made to accommodate many guests. Their names, inspired by their
decoration (the Indian Bird Room, the Acanthus Room), are painted on the doors.
Quotes by Geoffrey Mander’s cherished poets can be seen on their walls.
Alongside the family bedrooms are the nurseries, where the children played, ate
their meals and slept with Nanny. The tower servants’ rooms are directly
connected to the service wing downstairs. They had cold and hot running water,
a bathtub, and were provided with very comfortable living conditions, which was
unusual by the start of the 20th century. All this arrangement was
meant at generating domestic feeling and a sense of elegance.
It
was not before 1937 that Wightwick Manor was opened to the public by Sir
Geoffrey and donated to the National Trust. Having remarried in 1930 with
Rosalie Glynn Grylls, Sir Geoffrey, a radical Liberal MP, refurbished the house
his father Theodore Mander had left him. Rosalie, the academic, was the impulse
behind the Pre-Raphaelite collection that made Wightwick’s Manor fame. Having
given up her political career, she focussed instead on researching British
literature and art, beginning with a biography of Mary Shelley. She acquired
then works by artists close to William Morris, with an increased heed for
female painters, notably his daughter May, Lucy Madox Brown and Maria Spartali
Stillman.
In
addition to these, the Malthouse (a section of the original farm buildings used
for malting and brewing) shelters the De Morgan collection, dedicated to this
creative couple. During my visit, the gallery showcased some of the most iconic
canvasses by Evelyn de Morgan including Flora, Harmonia and Cadmus
or Night and Sleep.
 |
|
Evelyn
de Morgan, Cadmus and Harmonia, 1877
Oil
on canvas, 102 x 45 cm
De
Morgan Foundation
|
To
that date, Wightwick Manor owns the works of eleven professional women artists
on permanent display, more than any other National Trust institution and some
national galleries. To commemorate the anniversary of female suffrage last year,
the National Trust honoured women’s histories: the “Muse to Maker” show at the
Red House for instance, was part of this Women and Power programme on the most
famous females of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and their contribution to the Arts
and Crafts Movement. At Wightwick Manor, the re-enactments of the Suffragettes
march had been so popular throughout 2018 that they were brought back for the
Halloween season. Based on Emeline Pankhurst’s autobiography, volunteers in costume
performed indoors, which rooms were adorned with green and purple banners, and
other “votes for women” signs.
So
it was only logical that Wightwick Manor should hold from March to December
“Beyond Ophelia: a celebration of Lizzie Siddal” to acknowledge her status as
poet and artist. Located in the single guest bedroom with the Daisy Morris
wallpaper, it comprised a total of twelve artworks in various techniques and a
couple of loans formerly owned by the Manders, all of which gathered and some
mounted in frame for the very first time. As in the other bedrooms, it featured two full poems and some
quotations on the wall. This was the second retrospective on Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal
only, curated seventeen years after the show at the Ruskin Gallery by Jan Marsh.
Siddal
is known either as the model who sat for Ophelia, one of the nation’s
most iconic paintings, or the tragic muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but this thematical
display explored the acquisition history of Siddal’s works, her subject-matter
and style. The few biographical elements were only available to apprise the
viewer’s understanding of Siddal’s career choices, her working conditions as a
professional artist.
With
exhibits spread between wall hangings and pieces of furniture (two tables in
the corners, one in the centre, plus the fireplace and small sofa facing the
window), the viewer was free to wander as he or she pleased: artworks all
embodied the basis of the reflection on one particular aspect of her legacy. It
made sense though, to go from left to right, starting with the nearest wall to
the entrance. Panels indicated the distinct sections of the argument, along
with labels, written in simple lettering design and accessible language free of
jargon. Their visual identity was reinforced thanks to the stylised reproduction
in dark blue and yellow of a Rossetti ink sketch of Lizzie working, at her
easel.
Since
Siddal’s work is small in scale and range, it was significant to present it in
such an intimate setting. The viewer could thus get extremely close to the
artworks, noticing the intricacy of details in pen and ink sketches, the
variations in watercolour tints and get immersed in her ominous motifs. I was
also surprised to discover that some artworks were not that small – contrary to
what catalogues had led me to believe – but almost medium format. Besides, the
soft pastel hues of green with touches of pink and blue wallpaper emphasised
the jewel-like patches and strong outlines of the drawings.
Interestingly,
we began not with her youth but a 1854 drawing entitled Lovers Listenning to
Music, revealing great mastery of light and shade[1].
It was part of a lot of six works bought by the Manders at a Sotheby’s auction
in 1961, from which art dealer and historian Jeremy Maas was outbid “thus creating
a world record of her work”. Lady Mander was acquainted with Helen Rossetti
Angeli as well, who owned The Haunted Wood and The Eve of Saint Agnes.
Both women agreed Siddal had “real original talent, not at all Dante Gabriel
Rossetti”. Overall, Lady Mander’s 1964 biography of Rossetti provoked a surge
of interest in Pre-Raphaelite studies. Reproductions of letters and Sotheby’s estimations
that the visitor could read and manipulate at his/ her will added up to the
feeling of proximity with the collectors’ history.
 |
| Elizabeth Siddal, The Haunted Wood, 1856 Gouache on paper, 11 x 12 cm National Trust |
On
this same table, a copy of The Germ – the literary magazine of the
Pre-Raphaelites – was to be found. It was open on the page revealing a drawing
of Siddal as Viola by Walter Deverell. This exhibit and the video filmed by
curator Hannah Squire constituted the most groundbreaking enquiry of the show.
According to Dr Jan Marsh, who acted as its scientific advisor, the discovery
of Siddal by Walter Deverell in a milliner’s shop was a piece of fiction
transmitted by several generations of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, which made the
legend of Elizabeth Siddal more convincing. In her interview, Dr Marsh reassessed
Siddal’s early biography by claiming she herself took the initiative to sit for
Deverell and showed some sketches to his father, the principal of the London
School of Design – now Royal College of the Arts - as she was probably already
working as a dressmaker for the family. The rest of the video is dedicated to Siddal’s
poem "Silent Wood" read by one of the manor’s volunteers on soft notes of
background music.
This section, adequately entitled “Life and
Aspirations”, investigated on Siddal’s background as an burgeonning artist. Since
her family was thought to have been unsupportive and because she lacked money
for training, Siddal demonstrated quite some ambition for her condition (that
is, lower-middle class). If drawing was often practiced by accomplished young
ladies fit for marriage, it was regarded an amateur, not a professional, activity. Siddal,
on the contrary, expected more than entering the studio by merely sitting for
artists. She enjoyed spending time with and
learning from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, unchaperoned.
However,
most major institutions – like the Royal Academy – didn’t admit women. If you
wanted to get education, it was through private tuition (often for a fee) or regional,
less prestigious art schools, which still implemented gender segregation. It
seems that in exchange of modelling, Siddal required Rossetti to teach her
painting. Her lover, who had secured John Ruskin’s patronage for her in 1855[1],
encouraged imagination, creativity and authenticity, rather than accuracy and
refined composition, in line with early Pre-Raphaelite doctrines. Working at
Rossetti’s and borrowing from his materials, Siddal never had a studio of her
own. In 1857, when she attended the Sheffield School of Design, there was no
life class available, as drawing from the nude was deemed improper for ladies,
so she probably studied through basic elements of figure (outline and shading),
copy from casts, engravings or ornamental design and nature (plants and
flowers). Yet an institution of this type was initially meant for
craftsmanship, not fine art.
“Style
and subjects”: the core of the matter. Poetry fuelled Siddal’s potential for
innovation. Though deprived of ancient classical education, she received modest
instruction during her childhood and teenage years (e.g. reading and writing),
but that was enough to bring an awareness of existing literary traditions. Influenced
by Keats and Tennyson, Siddal’s poetry and art are suffused with Romanticism. Siddal
intensively collaborated with Rossetti too, by illustrating his poems. Sister Helen remains faithful to its
original source by manifesting sympathy for the eponymous protagonist, using
witchcraft to take revenge on her beloved, who has wronged her. Siddal’s
expressive, if not awkward poses, were inspired by medieval manuscripts and
early Italian art. She dealt with religious subject-matter too: she drew no
less than six sketches of the Virgin and Child, three of which on display.
Unlike the lack of command usually ascribed to her, this betrays some attempts
at commercial strategy, as this type of modern moral subject was thought
acceptable for a lady artist. With that many versions on the topic, varying the
characters poses and the move from Annunciation to Nativity scenes makes us
wonder whether she intended to devise a cycle on the life of Mary.
 |
|
Elizabeth
Siddal, Nativity or Madonna and Child, 1860
Pencil
on paper, National Trust
|
Her
figures are stiff silhouettes in long robes, so the focus really is on hands
and faces. Often appearing in claustrophobic settings, her compositions have been
interpreted in the context of 19th century separate spheres. The
Victorians attributed the private, domestic space of home to femininity,
whereas the public, outside world was perceived as male territory. It is not
rare to see windows in the corner of Siddal’s designs and women leaning towards
them. With Cecilia, Patron Saint of music, Siddal conceives artistic creation
as an isolated activity that should be performed alone in a peaceful environment,
akin to religious devotion.
Interspersed
between exhibits, pieces of poetry complement Siddal’s pictorial production. Often
related to the gouache The Haunted Wood
hung nearby, "Silent Wood" conveys a sense of gloom through Gothic touches and
uneasiness. Precision of botanical detail and rendition of heavy rhythm through
a pattern of couplets contribute to forge some enclosed, self-contained feeling.
The visual translation of the theme is even grimmer, alluding to the Doppelgänger
motif of Nordic folklore: meeting your double implied your imminent death. This
is delivered in the contorted pose of the female character, surprisingly
opening her arms to the ghost[1]. The other writings
in the spotlight are “Love and Hate” plus extracts of “The Lust of the Eyes”
and “Dead Love”. Apparently written in private, this care for Siddal’s poetry
coincided with the publication of her poems’ new edition by Dr Serena
Trowbridge, who gave a talk at Wightwick last January. More than her visual
production, Siddal’s verse reflects her tastes in popular legends and ghost
stories, enabling her to explore themes of lost love and death, therefore
fitting in a Victorian poetical convention.
Elizabeth
Siddal, St Cecilia, 1860
Right:
pencil and ink on paper, 21,5 x 20 cm ; left: pencil on paper, 20,5 x 17 cm
National
Trust
In
tune with its collection, Wightwick wished to shed a new analysis on Siddal’s
use of female characters. Either powerful or melancholy figures, they depart
from the customary depiction of voluptuous femmes
fatales we are used to seeing in Pre-Raphaelite painting. It was quite
unconventional for ladies to represent violent women, such as Sister Helen. The
saints Siddal was attracted to are marked by their life of solitude. The Eve of St Agnes invokes a ritual
performed by virgins on 21st January to see their future husbands
but Agnes is in fact the protector of those seeking chastity and purity.
 |
| Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Palace of Art 1857, engraving on paper by the Dalziel Brothers, 8,6 x 7,9 cm Tate Britain |
Cecilia
became a Christian martyr because of her faith as she was forced to marry a
pagan whom she managed to convert. In the pen and ink version, kneeling Cecilia
throws her head back in ecstasy towards the heavens. The three sketches on this
motif expose how Siddal experimented with layout by drawing Cecilia and the
Angel closer, brought together by their passion for music embodied in the shape
of the organ, and building their own “Palace of Art”[1].
To put it in a nutshell, Elizabeth Siddal readapted popular, literary and
biblical legend by concentrating narrative tension on the emotional struggles
experienced by her favourite heroines.
Visitors’
participation was encouraged with the display of Sir Galahad’s drawings on both
sides, newly mounted. Hinges allowed you to turn the frames and disclose Siddal’s
lack of funds as she sometimes drew on the front and rear of paper to save it.
This take on the Arthurian cycle was part of a project that never came to be: Siddal
began working on designs for the Moxon publication of Tennyson’s poems, from
which these were derived. Contrary to previous literary depictions of the
Knight extolling masculine action, Galahad[1],
in his startled expression, is self-denying. It is a moment of divine
revelation and one of the very first images of the quest for the Holy Grail in
Pre-Raphaelite art.
 |
|
Elizabeth
Siddal, Sir Galahad, 1860
Pencil
on paper, 20,5 x 17 cm
National
Trust
|
Visitors were further invited to have their say on a board upholstered with Morris fabric
in the corner of the room. Pencils and paper postcards were placed on a table,
reading “How do you think Lizzie Siddal should be remembered?”. Answers were
diverse, empowering and gave food for thought: ‘by being an inspiration to
women (and men)’, ‘to have a yearly remembrance’, ‘by showing her work amongst
her male peers’, ‘maybe a memorial or statue’. I thought this was probably the
most poignant legacy one could leave her: sending her a note, an honourable way
of resurrecting her for posterity.
On
the first day I entered the Daisy period room, I had a chat with a visitor who
peered at my notebook. I had the feeling she was quite representative of
art-amateurs on whom Elizabeth Siddal exerts ongoing fascination. Other viewers
I’ve talked to already knew her name and parts of her life. It was as this
precise point that I realised how much of a celebrity she was in Great Britain,
a country proud of its national school of painting, praising the individuality
and originality of Pre-Raphaelite art.
The
scrapbook left on the couch engaged you to “Discover” more, making for the
absence of catalogue. It was organised in chapters and added some information on
the artworks. From a more detailed study of her drawings to working conditions
of women in the Victorian art world, you could learn about Siddal’s complicated
relationships with Rossetti and Ruskin as they both stimulated and limited her
career opportunities. Despite these restrictions, we grasp that she made a
point of appearing as “Artist-Painter” in the 1861 census, at a time when her
ill health provoked by miscarriages probably prevented her from producing
anything. Adding some information on the exhibits’ sources of inspiration, it
also gave prominence to their provenance, an invaluable piece of evidence for
any research on that an elusive body of work. This ended up with the printing of
a couple of poems whose evocative titles evoke sorrow, remorse and passion.
Previous
to my detailed enquiry on the display, I was lucky enough to be granted an
interview with Helen Bratt-Wyton. Now house and collections manager at
Wightwick Manor and Gardens, she wrote her dissertation on William Morris and
socialism before getting interested in women’s history and domestic service. She
started by informing me that an initial mistake provided the basis of the
project: Sister Helen was
authenticated with other drawings from the Ashmolean Museum and re-attributed
to Elizabeth Siddal (some of her sketches were thought to be Rossetti’s).
The
choice of the title was made to dismantle stereotypes associating Siddal to the
drowning heroine she sat for. The aim was to point out her contribution to the
Pre-Raphaelite movement by influencing some of its “brothers” in return. This
was all the more necessary as the loans from descendants of the Pre-Raphaelites
came to Wightwick almost by accident, Helen explained to me. What appealed to
them in the first place was the taste for scandal and the direst aspects of Siddal’s
biography. For this precise reason, Helen stressed that the scrapbook had been
devised for viewers who wanted to know more about her life[1].
 |
| Elizabeth Siddal, Sister Helen, 1860 Ink and chalk on paper, 13 x 15 cm National Trust |
Its purpose was to raise an awareness of the Rossettis’ responsibility in editing
Siddal’s “legend”, without adopting a polemical tone: Dante Gabriel indeed
destroyed her notebooks and correspondence after she passed away. This is why I
appreciated the lack of data on her sickness, drug addiction and early death in
the exhibition itself. Yet her career had, according to early 20th
century collectors and critics, little artistic merits and value on the market.
Thanks to the Manders, this erroneous conception started to evolve[2].
This
change can be felt in the current use of language, women artists are less and
less the daughters of wives of …, to be portrayed as makers in their own right,
argued Helen. In that sense, the Women and Power programme might have been
conceived as overtly political, but this informal discussion felt incredibly
refreshing to share about my Ph.D topic without any judgment from my
respondent.
There
has certainly been a gap in reception of gender studies between my homeland and
the countries they originated from. In the UK, it is not a shame to be both
activist and researcher, on the contrary, it is rather embraced by art
historians working in the field. When I debate with British or American
curators, I don’t feel the need to restrain myself, moderate my speech, or prove my point. Let’s just say that to French art historians, Siddal could
appear as a mere ‘department’ of the more prolific painters she was acquainted
with[3].
 |
Therefore,
it is a shame this display did not elicit more attention from the media. I came
across it almost by accident on social networks, through the Facebook page of Wightwick
Manor and Gardens, which promotes relatively well its events. One can then
deplore the absence of general press coverage as reviews were published on
specialised websites or blogs (The Kissed Mouth, William Morris Society amongst
them), the most disappointing being, without a doubt, the one from the
Victorian Web. As much as I respect this database, its author has completely
missed the point, falling into the very pit the exhibition sought to disclaim: most
her artworks are interpreted as “borrowings from Rossetti”, The Haunted Wood is esteemed as “illegible”,
while all “can only be viewed as (…) amateur”. Nevertheless, Anna McNay devoted
the show a long, significant article in Studio
International and it seems the revision of Siddal’s poems has caused some
renewed scholarly attention to her career.
In
the end, did Wightick Manor and Gardens succeed in progressing beyond Ophelia?
Despite Simon Cooke’s assertion that “this is an inflated estimation, a
misreading that privileges the legend and not the facts”, this show, in my
opinion, fulfilled its pledges in tearing Elizabeth Siddal apart from constant
comparisons to her male counterparts. For the first time, the narrative of the
muse we have come to know as “Lizzie” has been framed out of Pre-Raphaelite mythography,
endowing her early start with more agency. This looks all the more promising in
an era favourable to female heritage finally making its way to museums and
galleries. It also gives one many hopes for the upcoming “Pre-Raphaelite
Sisters” show at the National Portrait Gallery, unveiling the stories of twelve
artists and models central to the movement, Siddal featuring as one of its
stars. Exhibitions of this scope are essential to open the doors of
world-famous museums to women studies. Traditional art histories need to be
thus shattered by alternative narratives reconfiguring the canon.
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[1] According
to William Michael Rossetti, this represents his brother and Siddal as a couple
on the Lovers’ Seat, a popular romantic spot in Hastings
[1] John Ruskin, after seeing some of her works under Rossetti’s initiative, offered Siddal an annual allowance of £150 for her whole artistic output
[1] This very painting was chosen to feature in the 1857 summer exhibition set up by Pre-Raphaelite associate Ford Madox Brown, at Russell Place. Elizabeth Siddal was its sole female artist
[1] Cecilia, from a noble Roman family in the first centuries of our era, is the heroine of Tennyson’s 1832 poem "The Palace of Art"
[1] Renowned for his gallantry and worthiness, Sir Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot, is the only knight able to see the grail with Percival
[1] Siddal and Rossetti’s relationship is in that respect characterised as ‘dysfonctional’. Marriage seemed to have been a source of quarrel as Gabriel avoided to commit for lack of financial means while their relationship risked of damaging her reputation
[2] Siddal’s collection was hung in Rossetti’s home after she died from laudanum overdose. It was spread through the photographic portfolio compiled by her husband in 1871
[3] I am here referring to an expression employed by Hector Obalk to describe Camille Claudel’s career in relation to her master and lover Auguste Rodin, interviewed for the opening of a museum dedicated to her in March 2017 (source: “Visites Privées” Youtube channel hosted by Stéphane Bern)
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