Thomas Thorneycorft’s ‘Boudicea and her daughters’
Continuing the focus on artists we turn to the Thorneycrofts, a family of painters and sculptors.
If you come along at 2pm on Saturday to the ‘Heroes of Westminster Walk’ you’ll discover an easily missed art-deco style building with seemingly vague squiggles and indentations which give us our link to this remarkable family. Thomas Thorneycroft created the imposing sculpture of Boudicea (sic?) on Westminster Bridge, and his wife, Mary Francis, was a sculptor who trained Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise. They had six children, four of whom were artists. On the walk we see Hamo’s controversial contribution to the Westminster landscape, and Teresa, the younger sister, provides our very neat segue to another, topical, literary figure who features on the walk just around the corner from our mysterious squiggles and indentations.
Intrigued? There’s much more. Come along!
This week’s question:
Thomas Thorneycroft’s work on Westminster Bridge features magnificent horses. Who lent Thomas two horses to use as models, and who is the central woman in the sculpture said to resemble?
Last week’s mystery person was Wilfrid Thesiger, travel writer and adventurer. The post completed a set of four men and women who turned their backs on Western civilisation.
Let’s turn our attention to artists. Have you heard of William Etty? Born in 1787, he was a gifted painter but perhaps a rather strange chap. A very shy man, he continued to attend student life- drawing classes all his life, lived with a young niece for years, and specialised in painting nudes in historical settings. He is also said to have possessed an impressive collection of masterpieces which he displayed in his flat.
He enjoyed commercial success, then went out of fashion, then recovered by turning to portraiture but after his death in 1849 his popularity and reputation declined, partly because his earlier works were regarded as ever so slightly pornographic, and possibly because lots of other artists developed similar skills. His works have recently enjoyed a renaissance and featured in various prominent exhibitions.
Late in life he moved back to his native York where you can see his statue outside the city’s art gallery.
Etty features in my next walk: ‘A Cultural Tour of Embankment and Strand’ on May 24th at 11.00am.
He often had to drink camel’s piss to survive. One of the great explorers, he thrived on hardship, travelling miles on meagre rations, on foot or on uncomfortable camels, barely surviving the harsh desert conditions.
From a privileged background, he attended Eton and Oxford but rejected the materialism of western civilisation, preferring instead to live with Bedu tribes in Arabia. A magnificent photographer, he later reluctantly put pen to paper to become one of the most famous travel writers in the English language. He spoke Arabic and was familiar with Arab tribes and customs; he resented any technology after the steam engine and shortly before his death predicted the extinction of the human race before the end of the 21st century.
He was strangely ambivalent about murder, often admiring it when part of a local tribal tradition. To gain acceptance with the Bedu people he learnt how to circumcise young boys, thenceforth providing a more hygienic alternative to the massive knives used by the locals. He was convinced of the superiority of the Bedu civilisation: he admired their courage, their loyalty, and their ability to survive in the desert.
He often told the story of how, after starving for days in the middle of the desert, his Bedu travel companions gave up their freshly made hare stew to three Arabs who happened to chance upon their group just as they were about to start their meal. Local custom required them to honour their guests and give them their food and his companions rejected the guests’ offer to share the food. Our subject said he ‘felt murderous’ but admired the generosity accorded to strangers. A lot of the tribes he lived with, though, were also murderous in their dealing with other tribes. And he seems to have turned a blind eye to their exploitation of his private wealth. It is estimated that about half a million pounds of his assets transferred over time to the people with whom he lived.
Our subject received a personal invitation to the coronation of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia; he was an Oxford boxing blue; he fought for the Abyssinians against the Italians; was a member of the SAS, and eventually received a knighthood.
On travelling in the Hindu Kush he came across fellow travel writer Eric Newby and his companion. Newby was suffering from dysentery and a host of other ailments but when Newby and his friend started to blow up their inflatable beds it prompted the rather non-PC reaction from our subject: “God, you must be a couple of pansies!” He was a tough cookie.
Last week’s blog featured T. E. Lawrence. The previous two were Gertrude Bell and Lady Hester Stanhope. In common with this week’s subject, they all turned their backs on Western civilisation.
Which one of the four would be your preferred dinner party companion? And why?!
“He found despair as necessary as ambition. He lived on the masochistic side of asceticism, and part of his self-punishment involved… cancelling out and denying high achievement and recognition. This involved a symbolic killing of the self, a taking up of a new life and a new name. A many-sided genius whose accomplishments precluded the privacy he constantly sought, but created in his own person a characterisation rivalling any in contemporary fiction”.
Subjected to torture; a linguist; explorer and resilient traveller; historian; translator of The Odyssey; successful pioneer of guerilla warfare and a military hero; close friends with some of the foremost figures in society; an expert shot with both hands; good at pretty much everything to which he turned his hand; enjoyed motorbikes; accused by some of betrayal; refused an official honour; interviewed and rejected by W.E Johns, (author of Biggles); and the occupant of a flat in Westminster. And that is only part of it. If the whole story was told it would give the game away.
