Usuaria:Mary Fortuny/Taller01

Rosa Frances Corder (18 de mayo de 1853 - 28 de noviembre de 1893) fue una artista victoriana y modelo de artistas. Corder era hija de Micah Corder (1808-1888), un comerciante de Londres, y de Charlotte Hill. Tenía facilidad para los idiomas y publicó una traducción de Science Without God (La ciencia sin Diós) del Rev. Father Didon antes de que cumpliera los 20 años.[1]

Tras formarse como músico junto con su herrmano Frederick Corder, optó por la pintura. Estudio con el retratista con Felix Moscheles y Frederick Sandys. Expuso en la Royal Academy of Arts y en Grosvenor Gallery .​ ​​ Su retrato de Edward Bouverie Pusey ​fue considerado "el mejor parecido" del erudito por los editores de sus obras completas y fue el grabado del frontispicio de su biografía.

​En los 1880 Harry Hall le traspasó su estudio en Southampton Row y Corder tambien aduqiria otro en otro Newmarket, donde se estableció como retratista de perros, caballos y caballos de carreras, ​ dandose a conocer en el mundo deportivo. Se dio a conocer por sus retratos de los jinetes, entre estos estaba Frederick Archer . ​​ ​The above is a copy of Rossetti's cartoon for stained glass, by Rosa. In the 1880s Rosa took over the studio of Harry Hall, an accomplished equine painter, in a town devoted to horse racing.  There was a little resistance to this woman coming into what was undoubtedly a male-dominated world, but Rosa had a love of animals that drew her to her subjects both human and otherwise.  It wasn't long before she fitted in completely.  One firm friend was the jockey Fred Archer who Rosa painted a couple of times during his prolific career.  Rosa was very close friends with Ellen Terry, who gave an account of visiting Rosa in her studio:

'"How wonderfully different are the expressions on terriers' faces," I said to her, looking at a painting of hers of a fox-terrier pup. "That's the only sort of pup I should like to have." "That one belonged to Fred Archer," Rosa Corder said. "I dare say he could get you one like it." We went to Archer and from him "Fussie" [Terry's dog] was obtained.' (from The Story of My Life by Ellen Terry)

Corder se convirtió en amante de Charles Augustus Howell en 1873. Se cree que Howell la persuadió para que creara dibujos al estilo de Dante Gabriel Rossetti, que Howell podría hacer pasar por originales. ​ También se dice que Corder falsificó Fuselis.​ Se le atribuyen dibujos derivados de los diseños de vidrieras de Rossetti que representan la historia de San Jorge y el Dragón.​En 1883, Corder dio a luz a una niña de Howell; su hija fue bautizada como Beatrice Ellen Howell.

​Corder fue pintada por Whistler en su cuadro Arreglo en negro y marrón, en la Colección Frick . El retrato fue encargado por Howell.​ Su relación con Howell fue caricaturizada por Max Beerbohm en Rossetti and his Circle (1922).

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'"How wonderfully different are the expressions on terriers' faces," I said to her, looking at a painting of hers of a fox-terrier pup. "That's the only sort of pup I should like to have." "That one belonged to Fred Archer," Rosa Corder said. "I dare say he could get you one like it." We went to Archer and from him "Fussie" [Terry's dog] was obtained.' (from The Story of My Life by Ellen Terry)

Back to Newmarket, and sporting newspapers spoke glowingly of Rosa's pictures of the race horses.  Her paintings became popular engravings and she became a fixture in the town.  In secret, she had given birth to Howell's daughter the same year as she had moved to Newmarket.  Her love of animals also brought her into conflict with some of her potential clients and fellow Newmarket residents.  She seems to have been fined regularly for refusing to muzzle her dogs in public and in 1890 she was a witness at a trial against animal cruelty.

When Howell's wife Frances Kate (Kitty) died in 1888, Rosa took care of the Howell's daughter Rosalind, who grew up alongside her half-sister, Rosa's daughter Beatrice.  Howell died in 1890 and it was rumoured that he had been found with his throat cut in a gutter with a sovereign between his teeth but the truth was somewhat more mundane.  He developed pneumonia after a chill and was confined to a hospital where Rosa visited him daily.  Rosa only outlived her mentor by a couple of years, much in the same way as Alexa Wilding and Rossetti, or Dorothy Dene and Leighton.  Rosa's love of animals proved her undoing as she too developed pneumonia after taking extra time to ensure her horse was dry on a cold wet day before seeing to her own needs.  She died in 1893, aged only 40.

Right then, so what is it that we can say for sure?  Rosa was bright and talented with an independent spirit.  This we know because of her many accomplishments and the fact that she represented herself in male-dominated art and sports worlds.  She obviously loved Howell who she not only had a child with but also cared for at the end of his life.  She also cared deeply for animals, proved by her willingness to stand up in court and testify against an owner who had mistreated his horses.  She undoubtedly produced the forgeries that Howell sold but we don't know if the young woman knew what her lover was doing or that she felt comfortable within that relationship to object.  It seems to me that in reading accounts of the whole forgery business, Rosa and Howell are seen as equal partners in the villainy.  Actually, more than that, Howell is seen as a crook but Rosa is seen as a temptress, sexually promiscuous even before she meets Howell.  Weintraub's casual assertion that she had probably jumped from bed to bed before ending up with Howell is a judgement not a fact.  He's not the first to condemn her - in Murray Marks and His Friends (1919), G G Williamson says that Rosa lived on 'very intimate terms' with Whistler, Rossetti and Howell.  When Ellen Terry refers to her friend as 'plain-beautiful' somehow there is no judgement. I don't know what it is about Rosa that makes writers want to believe she was promiscuous and immoral, where as someone like Howell can get away with being 'a bit of a rogue' or even criminal. For a woman, being criminal is not enough, she also seems to have to be slutty.  I think that says far more about the biographers than it does Miss Rosa Corder.

Anyway, I think it is probably better for us to think of Rosa as an animal-loving young woman who may or may not have known what her much older lover was up to, but still stuck by him and his daughter until the end of her life.

Posted by Kirsty Stonell Walker at 14:42

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Labels: Biography, Ellen Terry, Rosa Corder

2 comments:

1. 12 October 2018 at 10:23 Thanks Kirsty this is an amazing insight, I wondered why there was tension between Howell and the PRB. It seems I have so much more to learn, thankfully I have just ordered your latest book, coming today or tomorrow ! Reply
2. 6 November 2018 at 19:14 Sort of off-topic, but to me that Fuseli painting looks strikingly like some combination of Ingres and Tamara Lempicka, so interesting to see a more modern style in a work that predates both artists. Reply

http://fannycornforth.blogspot.com/2018/10/in-defence-of-rosa-corder.htmlhttps://www.artic.edu/artworks/15142/rosa-corder

Rosa Frances Corder, 1853-1893

Nationality: English

Date of Birth: 18 May 1853

Place of Birth: London

Place of Death: Vale Lodge, Fordham, Cambridgeshire

Identity:

Rosa Frances Corder was an English artist. She was the daughter of Micah Corder (1808-88), a lighterman, and Charlotte Hill. From c. 1873, she was the mistress of Charles A. Howell, entrepreneur, rogue and sometime associate of JW's. Their daughter Beatrice Ellen Howell was born in 1883.

Life:

Corder studied music under Felix Moscheles. She also took to art and from Howell learnt to make copies of eighteenth century portraits and erotic drawings by Henry Fuseli.She also made a copy after John Everett Millais' Vale of Rest (1857). For a time she had a studio at Newmarket and painted racehorses. Corder also painted portraits. Her sitters included Algernon Graves in 1878 and F. R. Leyland in 1882, both of whom also sat for JW. Corder's portrait of Graves was reproduced in Graves' Art Sales, from early in the eighteenth century to early in the twentieth century (1918). There is a drypoint of her by Mortimer Menpes.

Some time after 1873 Howell commissioned JW to paint Corder's portrait for £100 and said he would arrange with

Bibliography:

Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995; MacDonald, Margaret F., Susan Galassi, Aileen Ribeiro and P. de Montfort, Whistler, Women and Fashion, New Haven and London, 2003. https://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/biog/?nid=CordR