Louise Jopling Art

Louise Jopling (1843-1933) Miss Enthoven A charming portrait of Miss Enthoven, thought to have been exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, London in the winter of 1878 under the title 'Portrait of Nelly - daughter of S Enthoven Esq.' Signed, dated, inscribed verso on the artist’s label and presented in its original kit-kat style frame.. Louise Jopling was one of the most highly regarded portrait artists of her time. Her sitters were the high society glitterati of the late Victorian era. Many examples of her work, for comparison, can be found on the artuk website. I am indebted to Dr Patricia de Montfort, Curator for Whistler Studies at the University of Glasgow for this research and the inclusion of this work in her catalogue raisonné. Credit Wikipedia Louise Jane Goode was born in Manchester, the fifth of the nine children of railway contractor Thomas Smith "T.S." Goode and his wife Frances. She married at seventeen to civil servant Francis "Frank" Romer. The Baroness de Rothschild, a connection of Romer's, encouraged Louise to pursue and develop her art. In the later 1860s, she studied in Paris with Charles Joshua Chaplin and Alfred Stevens, and first exhibited her work at the Salon. She entered works into the Royal Academy shows, 1870–73 (as Louise Romer). After Romer's 1872 death, she married Vanity Fair artist Joseph Middleton Jopling in 1874, who in 1888 was best man at Whistler's wedding to Beatrix Godwin. Of the children from her first marriage only one son, Percy Romer, survived childhood. She had another son, Lindsay Millais Jopling, by her second marriage; the child was named after his two godfathers Sir Coutts Lindsay, founder of the Grosvenor Gallery and John Everett Millais. She achieved fair success in her career: her painting Five O'Clock Tea was sold for £400 in 1874. Her Five Sisters of York was shown at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876, and her The Modern Cinderella at the Paris Exposition of 1878. Yet she was not immune to the gender discrimination of her time: in 1883 she sought a portrait commission for 150 guineas, but lost it to Sir John Everett Millais, who was paid 1000 guineas for the same project. Jopling exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. She joined the Society of Women Artists (1880) and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (1891); she became the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists (1901). During the years of her marriage with Jopling, she became the primary earner of the family. It is said that, "She found this responsibility weighty and stressful, necessitating constant production, regular sales and a continual search for commissions and clients. In 1879, despite her own illness and that of her son Percy, she produced eighteen works." Social life Jopling "painted portraits of titled sitters, wealthy financiers and actresses" and, to operate in this social milieu, she maintained a fashionable lifestyle, with a Chelsea studio at 28 Beaufort Street, designed by William Burges. She moved in a social circle that included James McNeill Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Kate Perugini (née Dickens) and Ellen Terry. Augustus Dubourg dedicated his 1892 play Angelica to her. In 1887 the society magazine The Lady’s World described her social circle, One year we have her portrait, magnificently sketched by Millais, adorning the walls of the Grosvenor; next season she figures as the heroine of a ‘society’ novel from the pen of a popular writer. One week we see her salon drawn by Mr. Du Maurier in Punch, with sketches from the life of herself and her friends; the week after she appears under another name as the heroine of one of those quasi-malicious town and country tales which amuse the readers of a society paper… Over the mantelpiece hangs the portrait, by her old friend Sir John Millais...