Henrietta Rae
Encyclopedia
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
.
Born in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, she was the youngest of seven children of a civil servant; her mother was musically talented, a former student of Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. An uncle, Charles Rae, was an artist and a student of George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...
. Rae began studying art at age thirteen; she was educated at the Queen Square School of Art, Heatherley's School of Art (she was its first female pupil), and the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. She reportedly had to apply to the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
schools at least five times before she was accepted — though she eventually gained a seven-year scholarship. Her teachers there included Frank Bernard Dicksee
Frank Bernard Dicksee
Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee KCVO was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic historical and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time. Dicksee was born in London...
, William Powell Frith
William Powell Frith
William Powell Frith , was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852...
, and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA was a Dutch painter.Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there...
; the last of these had the strongest influence on Rae's later work. She became a frequent exhibitor at the annual Royal Academy shows, beginning in 1881.
She gained recognition and success early in her career, specializing in classical, allegorical, and literary subjects, often treated in a grand style and scale; her Psyche at the Throne of Venus (1894) measured 12 feet by 7 feet (305 by 193 cm) and contained 13 figures. Other paintings in the same classical vein include her Ariadne (1885), Eurydice (1886), Zephyrus and Flora (1888), Apollo and Daphne (1895), Diana and Calisto (1899), and Hylas and the Water Nymphs (1910) among many more. Eurydice won medals at exhibitions in Paris and at the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago.
Her Elaine Guarding the Shield of Lancelot (1885) was inspired by a Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
poem. She painted historical subjects, like Sir Richard Whittington Dispensing His Charities (1900); and portraits, often of socially prominent sitters like Lord Dufferin, whom she painted in 1901. Rae's 1891 picture of Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
, Miss Nightingale at Scutari (1854), was frequently reproduced as The Lady with the Lamp, and became probably her best-known work.
In 1884 she married fellow artist Ernest Normand
Ernest Normand
Ernest Normand was a notable painter in Victorian England. He painted history and orientalist paintings, and also undertook portraits. His work was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.In 1884 he married the painter Henrietta Rae...
; they had two children, a son (born 1886) and a daughter (1893). Henrietta Rae kept her maiden name after marriage, under which she'd already begun to establish her reputation — an unusual choice at the time. She and her husband lived in Holland Park
Holland Park
Holland Park is a district and a public park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in west central London, England.Holland Park has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area, known for attractive large Victorian townhouses, and high-class shopping and restaurants...
with many other artists of the day. The Normands were "adopted as the proteges of the older artists among whom they lived. Their studio was constantly visited by Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA , known as Sir Frederic Leighton, Bt, between 1886 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical and classical subject matter...
, Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...
, Prinsep
Valentine Cameron Prinsep
Valentine Cameron Prinsep, often known as Val Princep, was a British painter of the Pre-Raphaelite school.-Early life:...
, Watts, and others." The attention was not always welcome; in her memoirs, Rae described the sometimes overbearing attitudes and conduct of senior artists. In one case, Prinsep dipped his thumb in cobalt blue paint and marked up one of Rae's pictures; Rae gained her revenge by "accidentally" burning his hat on her stove. In 1893 the Normands moved to Upper Norwood
Upper Norwood
Upper Norwood is an elevated area in south London, England within the postcode SE19. It is a residential district largely in the London Borough of Croydon although some parts extend into the London Borough of Lambeth, London Borough of Southwark and the London Borough of Bromley. Upper Norwood...
, to a studio custom-built for them by Normand's father.
The Normands traveled to Paris in 1890 to study at the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
with Jules Joseph Lefebvre
Jules Joseph Lefebvre
Jules Joseph Lefebvre was a French figure painter.Lefebvre entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon...
and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant. In 1897 Rae organized an exhibition of the work of women artists for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
.
Like some other women artists of her time, Rae was a supporter of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and women's suffrage.