𓇬 Sunday Newsletter: A Sensitive Plant Under the Bower's Quiet Shade 𓇬

“The Snowdrop, in purest white array, First rears her head on Candlemas day.”

𓇚 Happy Sunday, Fellow Pre-Raphaelite Enthusiasts! 𓇚

Though it has been some time since my last email newsletter, much has been in blossom over on Substack:

• We explored the muddy banks of Hogsmill River, verdant with floral symbolism found in John Everett Millais’ Ophelia and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

• We strolled beneath the bower’s quiet shade to take a closer look at Edward Robert Hughes' The Princess out of School and learn about Tennyson's understanding of 19th-century science.

  

  The Princess out of School by Edward Robert Hughes, 1901. Gouache and watercolor in oak wood frame. National Gallery of Victoria

  “Yet what can be made of the bipartite title, given in a handwritten label on the back of the painting? “‘The Princess out of School’: under her favourite bower’s quiet shade. On her own couch, new made of flower leaves”?”

  - Vivien Gaston, “New Made of Flower Leaves”: Nature, Evolution and Female Education in Edward Robert Hughes’s The Princess out of School”

• In Autumn, we immersed in John Clare's autumnal poetry while traveling through George Price Boyce's Pre-Raphaelite autumnal landscapes.

• On Christmas, we listened to the songs of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s musical Medieval maidens in A Christmas Carol (1857-1858), A Christmas Carol (1867), and The Blue Closet (1857).

• We examined the art studies of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal and Edward Burne-Jones.

"Her verses were as simple and moving as ancient ballads; her drawings were as genuine in their medieval spirit as much more highly finished and competent works of Pre-Raphaelite art."

William Gaunt on Elizabeth Siddal’s work

• Along with exploring Evelyn de Morgan's art studies, we learned about her artistic influence and the challenges she faced as a woman in the Victorian art world.

• We reviewed PRB's list of "immortals," as listed in William Holman Hunt's Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905).

• We delved into the shelves of books on the life and work of Julia Margaret Cameron.

• We took a closer look at Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem The Sensitive Plant paired with Frank Dicksee's painting and other illustrations.

  

  The Sensitive Plant by Percy Bysshe Shelley, illustrated by Laurence Houseman (1898)

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.

✺ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant (1820) ✺

Last but not least in our recap, be sure to check out the Notes tab for daily inspiration, where you'll discover posts on unique books, rare Pre-Raphaelite art, cottage flowers, and heirloom crafts.

Going forward, I plan to send The Pre-Raphaelite Pleasaunce newsletter to your inbox every other Sunday, offering a recap of all the posts I’ve published over the past two weeks. This will alternate with The Pleasaunce newsletter, so if you're subscribed to both, you’ll receive a newsletter each week—one week exploring the realm of the Pre-Raphaelites, the next taking you through cottage gardens filled with historic varieties and Victorian crafts. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this schedule!

Sincerely,

Jesse 𓆸

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This week, I present a Rossetti portrait of Jane Morris, adorned with primroses in her hair and accompanied by the nodding heads of double snowdrops in hand, celebrating the fleeting beauty of snowdrop season and the promise of spring. She is thought to be depicting Persephone before her descent into the underworld.

Blanzifiore (Snowdrops) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1873

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In honor of Candlemas Day, this week's featured post, In the Pleasaunce with Snowdrops, takes us on a journey from 350 BC through the Elizabethan era to explore the snowdrop’s rich history and its enduring symbolism of hope and purity.

Here’s a sampling from this piece:

“As landscapes shed winter’s heavy cloak of gloom and grey, the winter-blooming snowdrops begin to herald spring. These fair yet hardy maidens of February emerge through snow using their strong leaves, earning them the French name Perce-Neige, which means to “pierce snow.”

The Pleasaunce

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