ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite with Tessa Sidey, Curator of Prints and
Drawings, at BMAG. 24
Mary Bennett pioneered research on Ford Madox Brown in a series of articles,
published after the 1964 retrospective exhibition, and the catalogue entries for all the
works by Brown in the seminal exhibition The Pre-Raphaelites (1984). 25 These have
become the basis of the catalogue raisonné that she is currently completing, which is
likely to be published in 2010. 26 One of the commonest attractions of studying
Brown is his links with the PRB. As early as 1973 Lucy Rabin explored his role in
the formation of, and influence on, the group in her PhD thesis Ford Madox Brown
and the Pre-Raphaelite History-Picture. 27 She showed how Brown's early artistic
training and trip to Rome, via Basel, resulted in his pioneering a new form of history
painting which greatly influenced the younger artists who formed the PRB. Without
the benefit of later research she relied heavily on Hueffer, following his version of
Brown's relationship with Emma, was aware of only the first five diaries, quoted in
W. M. Rossetti's Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters, and did not use original
manuscripts such as letters or account books. However, the strength of her argument
24 The exhibition was held from 24 August until 14 December 2008.
25 Mary Bennett, ‘Ford Madox Brown at Southend in 1846: Some lost Paintings,' Burlington Magazine,
vol. 115, no. 839, February 1973, pp. 74-78; 'Waiting: An English Fireside of 1854-5: Ford Madox
Brown's First Modern Subject Picture,' The Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, no. 1005, December 1986,
pp. 903-904. The Pre-Raphaelites, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1984.
26 The author has not seen the manuscript for Mary Bennett's catalogue raisonné. However, in the
preparations for the exhibition Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite (2008, BMAG) the
co-curator Tessa Sidey had several conversations with Bennett and sent her an early draft of the
catalogue of the drawings, prints, designs, watercolours and archive material at BMAG, which was
included in the exhibition catalogue. This was in itself based on a draft of this thesis. Bennett
commented on the identity of some of the works and her input has been referenced in both the
exhibition catalogue and this thesis. During this process the present author aided Bennett with her
catalogue re-identifying two drawings as studies for Chaucer at the Court of Edward III (cat. nos. 28
and 29). In January 2009, the present author also informed Bennett of two tracings in the Birmingham
collection previously identified as works by Frederick Sandys (cat. nos. 15a and 15b). These were
found by the present author whilst cataloguing drawings by Sandys for a new Birmingham Pre-
Raphaelite website (www.preraphaelites.org launched June 2009).
27 Lucy Rabin, Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelite History-Picture, New York and London,
Garland Publishing, 1978 (thesis completed 1973).
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