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I have always loved this Cinderella image for its realism and the artist’s subtle wink to what might occur. But until this morning I was never really familiar with any other works by Valentine Cameron Prinsep, A.R.A./R.A. 1/7
The lushness of Prinsep’s colors, his sumptuous treatment of fabric, and his painstaking attention to ornamentation and small details are astounding. 2/7
Prinsep was born in 1838 in Calcutta. His father was a British Civil Servant and his mother was sister to famed photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and to Maria Jackson, grandmother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. 3/7
His family moved back to England when Prinsep was 5 and their home welcomed many artists of the day. As a result he studied with Watts, was a fellow student of Whistler in Paris, and counted Burne-Jones, Browning, Du Maurier, Rossetti & Millais amongst his closest friends. 4/7
If you enter the library at the Oxford Union you can view the glorious murals Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Wm. Morris and Prinsep began in 1857, depicting Tennyson’s then recently published “Morte d’Arthur”. 5/7
Prinsep married Florence Leyland in 1884. One of their 3 sons, Anthony, married Marie Lohr in 1911 and together they managed London’s Globe Theatre (now The Gielgud Theatre) until 1928. 6/7
Valentine Cameron Prinsep exhibited at The Royal Academy for 42 years. He died in London in 1904 and was laid to rest at Brompton Cemetery. 7/7
