‘The Woman In Leopard Fur’ By Charlotte Brontë: A Brontë Mystery Solved.

In the Brontë Parsonage Museum collection in Haworth there’s a ‘mysterious’ watercolour painted by Charlotte Brontë —— called, ‘The Woman In Leopard Fur’; ‘Mysterious’ as in —— I’ve often wondered about Charlotte’s original source for her ‘Woman in Leopard Fur’ watercolour? 🐆 However, that source is a mystery no more!

For reference, Charlotte’s painting is reproduced in full colour in ‘The Art of The Brontës’ —— as well as in B/W. It’s a page(s) that invariably stops me in my tracks —— as I thumb through my very well-thumbed copy that’s stuffed with my own notes and page markers… ‘The Art of The Brontës’ by Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars published in 1995 —— is regarded as the first full-scale study of the paintings and drawings of the Brontës — yet it offers no clues as to where Charlotte copied her painting of “The Woman in Leopard Fur” from?🙄 Some Brontëites like to imagine that it’s a portrait of Emily???🙄

Somewhat miraculously, whilst continuing my research into a true ‘lost’ portrait of Emily Brontë (drawn by Charlotte) formally known as the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ —— I stumbled upon an engraving of the original source for Charlotte’s ‘Woman in Leopard Fur’. Charlotte’s painting is definitively copied from an engraving by Edward Smith after an original painting by James Northcote RA — a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds no less. Northcote was born in Plymouth in 1746 — and died in July 1831. Many of James Northcote’s paintings include big cats 🐅 — and one of his specialisms was painting Leopard fur.🐆 In that sense, the origin of Charlotte’s painting should really have been a complete no brainer — yet its taken almost as long as the truth about the ‘Bonnet’ to come to light! Diligent research usually pays dividends sooner or later, even if one finds something that one didn’t purposefully set out to find. . .Comparing Charlotte’s painting of ‘The Lady In Leopard Fur’ to Smith’s early 19th century engraving of Northcote’s original, I think it is accurate and fair to say that Charlotte’s copy is just that; a meticulous copy. The only difference between the two are the shapes of the trees on the horizons but the sitter is clearly One and the Same. Northcote’s original must be in a private collection as there is seemingly no trace online. I imagine that the subject is derived from Greek mythology? —— because Northcote also painted a beautiful painting of ‘Adonis’ wearing Leopard fur which can be easily viewed online here.🐆

Northcote’s original of Charlotte’s ‘Woman in Leopard Fur’ could well be a representation of a ‘Maenad’; The Maenads were female followers of Dionysus and often portrayed in Leopard skin robes.🐆

Anyhoo, a previously unsolved Brontë mystery has been solved by yours truly!

As an invaluable resource as ‘The Art of The Brontës’ undoubtedly is to those that love and study the art of the Brontës —— its authors simply couldn’t, can’t and don’t know everything! I hope the ‘Library Angels’ continue to guide my hand so that I can crack the much harder nut that is the ‘Bonnet Portrait’.

(I’m most grateful to ‘Udderdishbeeleaf’ on Instagram for the angelic link above; another happy ‘happenstance’ methinks!)

A reproduction of the ‘Bonnet Portrait’ in ‘The Bookman’ 1896. . .And again two years earlier in the ‘Woman at Home’ 1894. . .

The common denominator of both hefty volumes above —— besides the obvious double publication of the ‘Bonnet’ reproduction —— IS Scottish Free Church minister, journalist, editor, and man of letters —— the honorable and “very truly”, Sir William Robertson Nicoll. . .He was also the very person that saw the original ‘lost’ portrait of Emily Brontë by Charlotte in 1879, when he visited the Brontë’s faithful servant, Martha Brown in Haworth. He made three separate statements about the portrait that he ‘alone’ witnessed. In two separate statements, he described Charlotte’s portrait of her sister as a “drawing” – then in his later third and final statement —— he described it as a “painting”. The one thing he was consistently clear about was that it was most definitely a portrait by Charlotte, not a painting by Branwell as the National Portrait Gallery would have us continually believe! Hence, the inconsistency in Robertson Nicoll’s statements about the ‘lost’ portrait of Emily by Charlotte —— may explain why an original painting and an original drawing has since come to light a hundred years on; both are circa 1840. They are definitely NO copies of the much later reproduction above. Instead they are clearly derived from an engraving published in 1787 after a an original painting by Samuel Woodforde RA. . .

Hand-coloured stipple engraving dated 1787 —— engraved by John Raphael Smith after Samuel Woodforde’s ‘Wood-Nymph’.

Meticulously copying engravings is how Charlotte Brontë honed her artistic skills, although it’s evident that not all her copies religiously followed the engraver’s exact lines. Sometimes she took inspiration from an engraving but then made it her own —— as in the case for the ‘lost’ portrait of Emily Brontë. . .