Fanny Cornforth
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Fanny Cornforth (1824 - 1906) was a model and housekeeper for Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Fanny Cornforth married engineer Timothy Hughes in 1858, however, the marriage quickly ended. At around this time Dante Gabriel Rossetti met her and asked her to model for him. After his wife's death in 1862, Fanny moved in with him as his housekeeper. They probably had been having an affair before this. His wife, Elizabeth Siddal, had not liked Fanny. The affair would last until Rossetti's own death. For much of this time Rossetti was in an off-and-on affair with Jane Morris, but because she was married to his friend, William Morris, that relationship was not out in the open.
The relationship with Fanny, however, was. Fanny came from the lower class of English society. Her coarse accent and lack of education often shocked Rossetti's friends. She was never accepted by them and at times they pressured Rossetti to end the relationship.
Over the course of their relationship, Fanny gained weight. This bothered her more than Rossetti. His pet name for her was my "Dear Elephant." He drew cartoons of elephants for her which he sent to her when they were apart.
In Rossetti's paintings, Fanny appears as a fleshy blonde, in contrast to his more ethereal treatments of Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal.
[edit] Paintings of Fanny Cornforth
- Bocca Baciata, by Rossetti (1859)
- Lucrezia Borgia, by Rossetti (1861)
[edit] Bibliography
- Marsh, Jan (1995). The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, Quartet Books, UK.
- Daly, Gay (1989). Pre-Raphaelites in love, Ticknor & Fields, New York.
