I am looking at the face of a young woman, and what makes the image very remarkable is that it sat at the bottom of the sea for nearly 160 years amongst the wreckage of S.S. Central America which sank in 1857 off the coast of South Carolina.
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| But not the Mona Lisa of the Deep, 2023 |
Other than to say that the image is an example of a daguerreotype “which was made on a silver-plated copper plate, polished to a mirror finish, then sensitized by exposing the plate to the fumes of iodine or bromine.
After being exposed to light through a lens, the image was developed by exposing the plate to the fumes of mercury until the direct positive image appeared, then fixed in a bath of sodium thiosulfate or ordinary salt”.**
In all 100 images were recovered but many were too degraded to offer up a face, but there are ten which are very clear.
And of the 10 this one has captured the imagination of many and has gained the name of the “Mona Lisa of the Deep”. It was found a pile of coal on the sea bed.
Just who she was remains a mystery but my old school friend Richard Woods who sent over the image thinks “there is a possible resemblance to Ellen Lewis Herndon, who was the daughter of the captain of the SS Central America, although the image I have come across was taken at an older age”.
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| Astarte Syriaca, 1877 |
And that in turn prompted me to think about a series of Pre Raphaelite paintings many of which are in the collection of Manchester City Art Gallery.
Of these the paintings Astarte Syriaca** and the Bower Meadow are two of my favourites.
Both were painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and feature Jane Morris. She was the wife of William Morris, the socialist and leading figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.
William Morris remains one of those 19th century figures I am drawn to. His book News from Nowhere, and his designs have long been part of our house.
But if I am honest I have always also been captivated by images of Jane Morris which might be a bit questionable given that she was born in 1839 and died just 35 years before I was born.
Not that being married stopped her from a romantic entanglement with Rossetti or later with the poet and political activist, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who despite standing as a Tory and then a Liberal Parliamentary candidate was an anti-Imperialist, who campaigned for Irish independence, and challenged the motives of those who supported the Empire.
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| Proserpina, 1876 |
Now I knew nothing of Jane’s romantic attachments when I first came across her in the City Art Gallery. Nor that she had been born in what used to be called “humble circumstances” or that her mother was illiterate and according to one source her own education had been limited, which “probably was destined to go into domestic service like her mother…… [but after her engagement to William Morris] …… she was privately educated to become a gentleman's wife. Her keen intelligence allowed her to recreate herself.
She was a voracious reader who became proficient in French and Italian, and she became an accomplished pianist with a strong background in classical music. Her manners and speech became refined to an extent that contemporaries referred to her as ‘queenly.’
Later in life, she had no trouble moving in upper-class circles. She was the model for the heroine of the 1884 novel Miss Brown by Vernon Lee and may also have influenced George Bernard Shaw in creating the character of Eliza Doolittle in his play Pygmalion (1914) and the later film My Fair Lady (1964). She also became a skilled needlewoman, self-taught in ancient embroidery techniques, and later became renowned for her own embroideries.”****
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| The Meadow Bower, 1872 |
And that pretty much is that, other than to say this has been one of those twisty turney stories which started off with a ship wreck and a mystery woman in a picture and by degrees led me to William Morris and heap of things about Jane Morris.
All of which confirms that observation that history is messy and can take you off in all sorts of directions, and along the way highlights the poverty and lost chances of so many in 19th century Britain and the lucky chance that allowed one young woman destined for domestic service to warp off in a totally different direction.
I would like to have included that stunning image of the young woman plucked from the sea, but as yet I do not have permission from the company who who hold the rights to the image to publish it.
Hence the substituted image Not the Mona Lisa
It is a shame but falls into that domain of copyright issues of which I am a staunch supporter.
That said there is perhaps a difference between a work produced by an individual and one acquired by a company even if they went to the cost of preserving it.
But if that permission does finally come through there may be a story about its preservation by the Paul Messier Studio.
We shall see.
And in the meantime there are plenty of images of the young woman out there posted by people who have secured permission or just don't care.
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| Another not the Mona Lisa of the Deep |
Pictures; , Astarte Syriaca, 1877, and Meadow Bower, 1872,Dante Gabriel Rossetti Manchester City Art Gallery, and Proserpina, 1876, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Tate Art Gallery
* Doomed ship of gold’s ghostly picture gallery is plucked from the seabed, Dalya Alberge, The Guardian, February 27th, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/27/doomed-ship-of-golds-ghostly-picture-gallery-is-plucked-from-the-seabed and Mona Lisa of the Deep, Professional Photographers of America, Sunken treasure, Amanda Arnold • November 2022 Issue, https://www.ppa.com/ppmag/articles/mona-lisa-of-the-deep
**Stuart Williams
***Astarte Syriaca, Manchester City Art Galley, https://manchesterartgallery.org/explore/title/?mag-object-163
****Jane Morris, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Morris
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