Frederic George Stephens Collection

Collection — Box: VMF 15, Folder: 14

Identifier: MS-VMF-vmf160

Staff Only

1898 January 17. Autograph letter signed from Stephens to Mrs. M. P. Brocklebank, informing her that Christina Rossetti did not sit for the portrait of St. John in Ford Madox Brown's painting "Christ and Peter," [i.e. "Jesus Washing Peter's Feet"], 2 pages

1898 January 21. Autograph letter signed from Stephens to Mrs. M. P. Brocklebank, identifying the models for the faces in Ford Madox Brown's painting "Christ and Peter," 2 pages

1898 January 26. Autograph letter signed from Stephens to Mrs. M. P. Brocklebank, making additional identifications of models for "Christ and Peter," 3 pages

1898 January 26. Manuscript notes listing names of models used for Ford Madox Brown's "Christ and Peter," 2 pages

Dates

Creation: 1898

Creator

Stephens, Frederic George, 1827-1907 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Conditions Governing Use

Users of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.

Providing access to materials does not constitute permission to publish or otherwise authorize use. All publication not covered by fair use or other exceptions is restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder, which may or may not be Washington University.

If you wish to publish or license Special Collections materials, please contact Special Collections to inquire about copyright status at (314) 935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu. (Publish means quotation in whole or in part in seminar or term papers, theses or dissertations, journal articles, monographs, books, digital forms, photographs, images, dramatic presentations, transcriptions, or any other form prepared for a limited or general public.)

Extent

4.00 items

1 folders

Additional Description

Biographical Information

Frederic George Stephens (October 10, 1827 – March 9, 1907) was an art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Born in London, Stephens was physically disabled because of an accident in 1837 and was educated privately. He later attended University College School, London. In 1844, he entered the Royal Academy Schools where he first met John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. He joined their Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, often modeling for them in pictures including Millais's Ferdinand Lured by Ariel (1849) and Ford Madox Brown's Jesus Washing Peter's Feet (1852–6). He was so disappointed by his own artistic talent that he took up art criticism and stopped painting.

He communicated the aims of the Brotherhood to the public. He became the art critic and later the art editor of the Athenaeum while writing freelance for other art-history periodicals including The Art Journal and Portfolio. He also wrote for journals on the continent and the United States. His contributions to the Brotherhood's magazine The Germ were made under the pseudonyms Laura Savage and John Seward.

Stephen's first work of art history, Normandy: Its Gothic Architecture and History was published in 1865, and Flemish Relics, a history of Netherlandish art, appeared in 1866. Monographs on William Mulready (1867) and on Edwin Landseer (1869) followed. In 1873, he started writing series of almost 100 articles on British collecting for the Athenaeum; these treated major collections and small collectors alike thus encouraging middle-class art patronage and the growing Victorian interest for contemporary art.

He was also Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum and wrote most entries in the first volumes of the Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Division I: Political and Personal Satires, from 1870 onward. In 1875, Stephens began to characterize himself as an art historian rather than a critic and in 1877 he started to write contributions for the Grosvenor Gallery catalogues, which he continued to do until 1890.

His correspondent, Mary Petrena Brocklebank (April 26, 1849-May 15, 1937), was the wife of art collector Thomas Brocklebank.