ANTIQUE COLLECTING
The Journal of the
Antique Collectors' Club		 Logo
Extract from the December 2009 / January 2010 Magazine
December 2009/January 2010 Magazine Pages 4-5 VALENTINE PRINSEP
by Simon Toll
When Julia Margaret Cameron photographed her nephew Val Prinsep in 1874 and wanted to dress him in the costume of a historic character, there was only one that seemed appropriate for a man of his physical stature, that of Henry VIII. At over 6-feet tall, barrel-chested, with a thick red beard and penetrating eyes, Valentine Cameron Prinsep was an imposing figure in the art world of the late 19th century. However, he is now little known, only the handful of his paintings displayed by municipal galleries preventing his complete obscurity.
The name Valentine Cameron Prinsep is remarkable in itself. At a dinner party in St. James's Square he was accosted by Lady Cowper's butler who asked, 'What name sir?' 'Prinsep.' 'What name, sir?' 'Prins-ep', with emphasis. The artist and his hosts were astonished when the butler introduced him as Prince Hepp. Despite other similar confusions, Prinsep's name was one that was well known in late 19th century high society.
Prinsep was born in 1838 in Calcutta where his father was a member of the Indian Council and a close friend of the Viceroy. The Prinseps returned to England when Val was five, he was schooled at Haileybury and it was his parents' intention that he should follow his father into the Indian Civil Service. Much of his early life was spent at Little Holland House, the epicentre of the artistic com-munity of Kensington where his parents' circle included Tennyson, Browning and Thackeray and the artists Millais, Leighton, Holman Hunt, Morris and Burne Jones. Little Holland House became a salon for the most famous men and women of the age and the influence of eminent painters soon distracted the young Val from a vocation in administration. His father feared that his young son might not be able to make a living as an artist and agreed to pay him an allowance for ten years so that he might pursue his chosen profession. In 1855 Val was introduced to Frederic Leighton who became his closest friend and the two artists saw each other almost every day for the next 40 years.

Dec09Jan10 Magazine Page 7Figure 5. 'Home from Gleaning'. (Sotheby's)

George Frederic Watts became Prinsep's first tutor and was a significant influence on his young pupil with whom he embarked on an expedition aboard H.M.S. Gorgon to Asia Minor to discover the site of the Mausoleum, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This journey was to make a lasting impression on Prinsep's imagination. The sight of this giant of a man clambering over the ruins also made quite an impression on the local Turks who named him 'Tolos' (meaning 'the hailstorm'). Among his escapades in Budrum was throwing a donkey into the river, just to see if the unfortunate creature could swim. It was this exuberance of character that made him popular with all who met him.
When he was 19 Prinsep met the charismatic Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the leader of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a guest of William and Sara Prinsep at Little Holland House and was impressed by the young Val whom he invited to join him at Oxford where he was undertaking the famous project to decorate the Debating Chamber with scenes from Le Morte Darthur. Prinsep protested that he could not paint but Rossetti was insistent that it did not matter as he could learn. Thus Prinsep became one of the raucous fraternity of artists at Oxford and contributed to the scheme a decoration 17-feet long entitled 'Sir Pelleas and the Lady of the Lake'.
After Oxford it was decided that a more formal art training was required and the 21-year-old was dispatched to Paris to study in Gleyre's atelier. Prinsep became friends with Whistler and Poynter and their time in Paris was immortalised in George du Maurier's phenomenally successful novel Trilby in which Prinsep was the basis for the character of Taffy. However, the influence of Rossetti was not dulled by his time in France. As Prinsep wrote years later, 'Rossetti was the planet round which we revolved.' Following his return to London Prinsep set up a studio at Charlotte Street close to that of Rossetti and it was there that he painted one of his most exquisite pic-tures, 'The Queen was in the Parlour Eating Bread and Honey' (opposite). It was much inspired by the work of Rossetti and depicts a medieval girl with a mass of flaxen hair for which the Pre-Raphaelites were famous.