Following Fanny's Footsteps

 Bonjour!  I am in Paris, which is awfully fancy and filled with delicious things to see and eat. Other than trying to see how many moelleux au chocolat I can pack back, I am also in hot pursuit of Fanny Cornforth.  I grant you I am 161 years late, but still Fanny Cornforth's adventures in Paris are something I think we should all be talking about.

Venus Verticordia (c.1863) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The year is 1864, two years after the death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth and two years since Fanny Cornforth became Rossetti's exclusive lady friend, with a house just round the corner from Cheyne Walk.  Yes, she was still married to Tim Hughes, but for the most part, she was Rossetti's world, his model, muse and lover.  She was the face of his art, appearing in numerous domestic sketches as well as Fazio's Mistress, Woman Combing Her Hair, the precursor for Lady Lilith and Venus Verticordia, not to mention The Blue Bower. Therefore, when Rossetti travelled to Paris on 28th October 1864, he took Fanny with him.

I talk about this in Stunner but it really isn't discussed anywhere else, and no surprise really as Rossetti only talked about it in a letter to George Price Boyce, about how he and Fanny had just returned from Paris. In no other correspondence from the actual trip does he mention Fanny's presence, but then he was writing to his family and so that is unsurprising because (a) it's Fanny and (b) the last time he went was his honeymoon, which would have all seemed a bit distasteful.  Honestly, that detail does make me cringe a little - let's go on holiday to the same place as you honeymooned with your recently deceased wife! Such larks! Anyway, let's start with the Grand Hotel...

When Fanny and Rossetti arrived in Paris, they first stayed at the Grand Hotel on the Rue Scribe, at right angles to the Opera House.  The Opera House, or Palais Garnier (because you are worth it) was under construction from 1861 to 1875, so some of it would have been apparent. When they arrived in 1864, the hotel was a mere two years old and was part of the reconstruction of Paris under Baron Haussman. With 800 rooms on four floors, it was vast and luxurious and caught the public imagination, with royalty staying there, Victor Hugo hosting parties and Emile Zola's character Nana dying of smallpox there. Smashing. I didn't catch smallpox, but I did visit the same square...

Say hello (or rather Bonjour) to the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand, a five star experience which will set you back rather more than we spent on our hotel.  According to The Diamond Guide for the Stranger in Paris (which is not as filthy as it sounds) from 1867, it had a majestic dining room, a reading room, coffee room, telegraph office and rooms that cost between 4 and 40 francs a night which translates as around what it starts at now (a couple of hundred pounds a night) so maybe it isn't a surprise that Rossetti and Fanny only stayed there a couple of nights, moving to the Hotel de Dunkerque et de Folkestone at 32 Rue Laffitte...

We walked around a kilometre beyond the Opera House, past the Galeries Lafayette and up the endless, uphill Rue La Fayette until you reach the crossroad with Rue Laffitte.  I took a picture looking up towards Notre Dame de Lorette (covered in scaffolding I think). Fanny and Rossetti stayed in number 32 which I am pretty much outside of but has long since been replaced by a modern building. Dunkerque and Folkestone was a much older hotel, listed in Bradshaw's Illustrated Travellers Handbook as being small and well-kept with 'every kind of attention paid to its visitors'.  English and German were spoken and the food was plain and good, which is not exactly what you'd hope to read but is reassuring.

The couple were in Paris for around a month before returning to London, and whilst there they visited the zoological gardens in the Jardin des Plantes, a 6km walk (or carriage ride). At the zoo, they tickled a wombat, who liked it (according to Rossetti). They also visited Louisa Desoye's shop at 220 Rue de Rivoli, which is the extremely busy and expensive row of shops outside the Louvre. Louisa Desoye was a leading importer of Japanese objects and was frequented by many artists at this time (see here for more information on the Desoyes).  Unfortunately for Rossetti, James Tissot had beaten him to it and bought all the costume, so no kimono for Fanny, sadly. Rossetti settled for some books and the piece of gossip that his rival collector Whistler, another of Desoye's customers, was terribly jealous of Rossetti's blue and white collection, which leads me to wonder if that was the spark for The Blue Bower...

The Blue Bower (1865) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Also, while in Paris Rossetti visited with fellow artists and galleries, seeing works by the Impressionists which Rossetti did not care for at all calling them 'scrawls'. I think what I am left with by this visit is that Rossetti could take Fanny out and about in the city without anyone asking questions or feeling judgemental.  I have a few questions about why Rossetti would take Fanny to a city that he had taken his wife to only a couple of years earlier but I get the impression that it was a work trip of sorts for Rossetti. He loved the work of Delacroix (who had died the year before), and wanted to see his work on show in the capital. Henri Fantin-Latour had wanted to include Rossetti in his painting Homage to Delacroix...

Homage to Delacroix (1864) Henri Fantin-Latour

Just as a side note, Rossetti was meant to be in this picture but Whistler (in the middle, stood up) couldn't persuade him.  Likewise, Julia Margaret Cameron was desperate to take Rossetti's picture, but again he refused.  He hated G F Watts' portrait of him so much that he gave it to Fanny.  I wonder if he had sat for all the portraits he was asked to do, Rossetti might be taken more seriously today, but I also wonder if his refusal to have his likeness taken was a symptom of his declining mental state. I digress...

Fanny Cornforth (1868) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Walking in Fanny's footsteps in Paris was an interesting experience, not least because it was her only experience of foreign travel, something unthinkable for her, a girl from rural poverty. Although the hotels promised English speaking staff, she would have been in the company of people who did not speak English, including her companion. How would she have felt? Would she have known if they were talking about her? The noise and bustle of Paris would not have been any different than that of London but, of course, it was totally unfamiliar. It was 1864 and Rossetti was beginning his long walk towards substance abuse, mental instability and eventually death, but were they, at that moment, happy? It would be quite the experience to find yourself in a foreign land with a man whose affections were uncertain, whose mental state was unreliable and would start his obsession with Jane Morris within the year, not to mention swapping Fanny's face for that of Alexa Wilding. I hope Fanny ate, drank and was thoroughly spoiled in Paris, enjoying the attention of other artists and the man she loved, Rossetti. 

Because, as the Palais Garnier says, she was definitely worth it.