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This painting came directly from the estate of Peter and Kathleen
Wick. Peter Wick was Curator of Prints and Graphics at the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston, and later the Director of the Houghton
Library at Harvard University. Kathleen Wick was a bookbinder
and bibliophile. Their daughter, Kathleen Wick Galacar, believes
her maternal grandmother purchased it in England before World
War II and that her father was always confident of the Brontë
attribution.
Two highly reputable New York conservators, Paul Himmelstein
and Barbara Appelbaum, have confirmed that the painting is from
the first half of the 19th century. An old plaque on the frame
reads:
The Brontë Sisters
Patrick Branwell Brontë
The sitters do resemble the likenesses of Emily and Anne Brontë
in Branwell’s portrait of the three Brontë sisters
now belonging to the Brontë Society. In this painting the
awkward Emily would appear to be on the left and the more delicate
and attractive Anne on the right. Emily and Anne never lived
to see the acknowledgement experienced by Charlotte, recognition
they would have shared had they lived beyond 1848 and 1849 respectively.
It seems unlikely that anyone other than a family member would
have painted them in their own lifetimes.
Alden O’Brian, Curator of Costumes and Textiles at the
Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, D.C.,
dates the style of the dresses worn by the two young women in
this painting to the late 1810’s. However, Rebecca Fraser,
in The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family
(Penguin, 1988, p. 164) footnoting Mrs. Gaskell, in The Life
of Charlotte Brontë (Penquin 1975, p. 230) states that
upon the arrival of Charlotte and Emily in Brussels in 1842:
The Belgian girls thought the new English pupils ‘wild
and scared-looking’ with strange odd insular ideas about
dress; for Emily had taken a fancy to the fashion, ugly
and preposterous even during its reign, of gigot sleeves,
and persisted in wearing them long after they were,
‘gone out’. Her petticoats too had not a curve or
wave in them, but hung down straight and long,
clinging to her lank figure.
As the two young women depicted in this painting appear to
be in their late teens or early twenties, it would seem that,
if painted from life, it would date to the late 1830’s.
Anne was absent from the family circle from 1835-1837, at Miss
Wooler’s School at Roe Head, Mirfield, and again as governess
at Blake Hall, Mirfield in 1839. Therefore, the most likely date
for the painting, if indeed done from life, may be ca. 1838.
Branwell is recorded as having spent June, 1838 to May, 1839
as a portrait painter in Bradford. The painting, if indeed by
Branwell, could have been done before his Bradford sojourn, when
Emily was 19 and Anne 18 years old.
It is also possible that Charlotte Brontë is the author
of this picture. Although severely shortsighted, she was also
admired for her drawing ability and apparently envious of the
career path as an artist open to Branwell. Charlotte’s drawing
of Anne at age 14 is similar in interpretation to the image in
this picture. Clearly, the artist is self-taught. The painting
bears all the hallmarks of an amateur with its stilted poses,
awkward anatomy, careful attention to detail, and dry execution.
Charlotte is also conspicuously absent in this picture. She was
teaching in Roe Head from July, 1835 to May, 1838. She may have
been absent from the parsonage when this painting was done, or
she could have painted it after her return from Roe Head or during
a visit home.
It is also quite possible that an amateur artist enamored
with the young authors, following their successful publications,
did the painting posthumously. It is odd, however, that Charlotte,
the most famous of the three, would not be included. |
