Tuesday 24th December - On the Sofa

 Well, here we are and it's the last day of Catvent!  By the time I post this, it will no doubt be Christmas day somewhere in the world (I have my Father Christmas tracking page open so I can watch him visiting everyone) so let's crack on with the final Catvent of the year,,,

Mr Tibbles wishes she'd put some damn clothes on.

When I was selecting paintings for this year, I found lots that were interesting, had great back stories and gave me the chance to research models and artists and make silly comments about cats, which is always a pleasure.  However, for my final painting, I had to choose this one...

On the Sofa (1902) Vittorio Matteo Corcos

Look at how gorgeous she is! The girl isn't bad either and I really hope I can find that colour hair dye because everything is shiny and luxurious and wonderful. I would very much like to spend Christmas Eve in a similar position.  Let's enter the shiny world of Vittorio Matteo Corcos...

Self Portrait (1913)

What a big moustache! I found the lot essay for a gorgeous painting at Christies very illuminating and raises the question we looked at early this month with Edwin Long - how does a very successful artist drop from the public consciousness? Vittorio and his magnificent moustache did some of the most exquisite paintings and was famous not only in his homeland of Italy, but also over in England - in The Bystander in 1910, he is giving his opinion on the extravagances of the Portuguese royal family.  He was a society portrait painter, which, I admit, can give you a shelf-life - when your subjects stop being famous, so do you.  I saw with nervous interest that one of Corcos's subjects was Mussolini, and this isn't Fascist-vent thank you, but as Corcos was Jewish then whole situation is a lot more complicated and I think we can move on.  He seems to have painted all sorts of rich people who were no doubt dodgy (including the extravagant Queen Amelia and her spending problems in Portugal) but his portraits are not why we are here.  We are here for pretty girls, books and idleness!

An Afternoon on the Porch (1895)

These two look extremely idle and I thoroughly approve.  What a gorgeous terrace with the sunshine, greenery and a general feeling of ease.  The couple are actually Corcos's step children, which is unnecessary context but changes the mood of the piece a little, I think. It becomes a comment on the household and not just the couple, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, there is a feeling of peace, intellect and most of all, reading.  The young man has a newspaper and the lass has a stack of books.  Now, about those books...

Dreams (1896)

I definitely know this painting and have used it before on the blog because it is gorgeous! The lighting! The sleeves! The yellow books, again - I think we all know that they are a sign of decadence, of illicit reading material, whether it be The Yellow Book or the yellow-covered books that indicated naughty French novels. Either way, it's a decadent move that leads to this sort of thing...

After the Ball (1899) Ramon Casas

Honestly, that painting represents most of my life goals. This young lady has flaked out after an evening of decadent dancing and the suchlike and is now on her comfy sofa with her book which is definitely yellow. What I like about Casas and Corcos is that women read the books, and in Corcos especially, these women are well dressed and serious looking.  They are taking their debauched literature seriously and have enviable to-be-read piles. The women in Corcos's pictures look back at us as equals, even when they are lounging about in their satin-y boudoirs.  Talking of our pink satin lass, I think this is probably her too...

Girl with a Little Dog (c.1890s)

I might suggest that she is now up the other end of her day bed/sofa-thing and is now playing with a terrier who is also wearing a pink satin ribbon.  This one looks likely too...

Girl with a Little Dog (1890s)

I think that is the same frock again but her boob seems to have popped out a smidge. I love the wall behind with the art nouveau-y design and she seems to have acquired a new shiny sofa. I bet it is hard to sit still on any furniture with that amount of slide-y fabric - you'd be no sooner on than off. I love these silly pink, Fragonard-y frivolities and the one with the little kitten is particularly good as I like the pop of blue from the ribbon on its collar. Just for balance, he also did chaps too...

Portrait of a Man, possibly Cesare Formilli (1890)

Like a lot of artists, Corcos had separate moods for different purposes - he does formal, respectful portraits, he does thoughtful paintings of intelligent women and he does frilly fantasies.  There are cross-overs, obviously - some of the portraits are frilly - but he displays amply that an artist has to eat as well as create world-reflecting great art.

Waiting by the Fountain (1896)

It is nice to finish on such a beautiful note, and you'll be pleased to hear that Corcos died in his 70s after a long, success career.  His work feels reminiscent of Singer Sargent, Manet, fashion photography and all stylish and positive things and I especially love his paintings of those headstrong young women, thinking for themselves and getting out in the world with their books and ideas. This Christmas I will emulate a Corcos girl and stay in on my sofa with my dog and cat (although I'll keep my bits and pieces inside my jumper as it's a bit chilly for that) and my big stack of books and have a jolly nice time. May you all have the same.

Happy Christmas to you all and many thanks for your company over the last 24 days.  May the next few days be peaceful, full of good food, warm blankets and lots of giggles and I'll catch up with you again soon.

Monday 23rd December - Women's Rights - A Meeting

 Oh no! We are down to our penultimate Catvent and for the last two days I seemed to have ended up with two completely different sides of myself.  So, let's start today's post...

Oh my goodness, today is going to be a shouty one, I can feel it coming.  We have lightly touched on the idea of women being 'catlike' and having an affinity with all things feline over the last 22 days, but today we are taking it to an interesting new level...

Women's Rights: A Meeting (1885) William Henry Hamilton Trood

Right, we'll have to take the painting and Mr Trood separately as I have a fair bit to say about both. But I'll start with the painting.  Trood had a reputation for sentimental and comic works around animals, so this is not out of his normal scope, however, it is rather political when compared to his normal fare, such as this - 

Friend or Foe (1891)

and especially this...

A Surprising Result (1887)

In fact, if you peruse Mr Trood's output, it is mainly extremely cute puppies being delightful, which makes the cat picture puzzling in a way. To put it in context, I used another, similar painting in the Narrative Art exhibition I curated in Southampton and Bournemouth a couple of years back - 

The Dogs' Home (1883) Walter Hunt

At first glance, The Dogs' Home is a sad painting about abandoned or lost dogs, with little vignettes of different dogs behaving in different ways, but it is actually a comment on how different classes cope in diversity and society's treatment of the most in need.  The working dog unable to work despairs on the right. The little posh dog who has lost its ribbon is unable to get food for himself and in the middle, the noble hound looks out at us, inviting us to work out how we would manage in such a situation and what we could do to help.  Now let's look at the cats...

We have the central figure, like in the dogs' home, who seems to look out at us to draw us into the scene.  She is wearing her ribbon of office but it is difficult to see what her expression is - is she fed up? Is she angry? She doesn't look happy, that's for sure. What of her companions?

There is a lot going on in this group.  Starting at the back, the back and white cat seems transfixed by the peacock feathers, which also appear in front of the cat rolling round with a crazed look on her face.  The Chairman gets the same after I open the 'Cosmic Catnip' from Pets at Home. That stuff is alarmingly strong. The peacock feather symbolises the vanity and frivolity of women and their easy distraction with pretty things. The pair about to get clawed by the drug-fuelled cat are interesting - as we covered with The Favourite, you don't get ginger girls that often, so is that cat a male supporter of women's rights and apparently just there to pick up women?  Chicks dig Equality, you can't fault his reasoning. The other less likely explanation, which is no less insulting, is that she is a ginger female, and therefore we have rampent cat lesbianism at our women's rights meeting. What can I say? Chicks dig Chicks who dig Equality.

On the left of our Chair-cat of the meeting we have this beautiful white cat and her pink collar.  She is book-ended on the right by this tortoiseshell one...

What on earth are they representing?  Both are fancy cats, so do they represent the upper classes and their involvement in the fight for women's rights? They actually look a bit put off because of the chaos, so maybe they are meant to be sensible, middle class women who will not be returning to this sort of nonsense, thank you.

And behind them is this black cat, in a right state, literally caterwauling. For goodness sake.

This is a strange painting to judge the tone of, as the title might not be the one that the artist intended. It is definitely a painting of a meeting, hence the sign on the back wall 'A MEETING WILL BE HELD' and the roll of papers under the paws of the black and white cat.  Yes, there is a link in society between women and cats, but I'm not convinced that Trood intended this to be a piece of biting anti-women political satire, especially as that doesn't seem to be his forte. In the same year (1885) Trood exhibited Fellow Feeling Makes Us Wondrous Kind at the Royal Academy, showing a cat looking at a proud dog's little puppies in wonder. It would seem an odd move to also do a painting about how ridiculous women are, especially as women's suffrage had slightly stalled at this point, trundling haltingly in and out of political discourse. Trood had some of his work in Punch which was satirical - also in 1885, his painting Puppy Class was used to mock politicians...

An Engraving of Puppy Class

The 'hilarious' Punch cartoon.  Oh, how we laughed.

In Mr Trood's defence, I call upon the Western Daily Press to vindicate him somewhat - when reporting on an exhibition in October 1885, they wrote 

'Among prominent objects are specimens of his work sent in by Mr W H Trood of Taunton, who gives such clever delineation of dog and cat subjects. It was but the other week that Mr Trood's "Puppy Class" afforded scope for the artist of Punch to produce a political adaptation; and now he has issued a companion picture, a row of cats, with expressive countenances, which someone has termed "Women's rights."'

Now, the interesting bit in the above for me is 'someone has termed' implying that it wasn't the original title or intent of the work but then just stuck. Punch were notoriously no friend to the suffragist, so the connection and message seems to have attached itself to something that might only have intended to represent a disorderly meeting with the many different types of people who attend.  Mr Trood might have very little say in it.

William Henry Hamilton Trood is a fascinating man indeed and again, one who there is a misunderstanding about. I saw in various places that he had been born both deaf and non-verbal, with one obituarist allegedly saying how well he had done for someone born deaf and dumb.  Well, actually, that wasn't true, and I can thoroughly recommend Britain's Deaf Heritage by Peter W Jackson for being a tad more accurate.  A bit like Emma Irlam Briggs, Trood had become deaf around 5 years old after an illness but it didn't hold him back.  He had started drawing dogs aged 4, and after some private schooling had embarked on a very successful career, including being presented a silver-gilded and jewelled Damascus sword from the Sultan of Morocco for services rendered. He was a frequent traveller and his work was well known and liked due to its commercial and humorous nature.  Sadly, he died young, at only 39 years old, after a brief illness.

Wait Till The Clouds Roll By (1893)

It seems unfair that a seemingly gentle, humorous image of cats ended up representing a certain type of male distain for little ladies getting ideas about equality.  Some paintings end up with a half dozen names because over time their owners have called them different things, but it is definitely up to us to question the origins, especially if it puts an artist on the wrong side of history.

See you tomorrow for the finale....

Sunday 22nd December - Woman Lying on a Bench

Gosh, it's Sunday!  We only have a couple more after this! I best get on with it...

'Her Mother's Voice'

That one took me a minute and I had to go and google whether 'catgut' actually was made of the insides of cat.  Of course not, that would be weird.  It's sheep and cows. Moving on...

It is a day of rest and so I truly intend to take it easy today. If I am honest, I am absolutely exhausted from the last few days/weeks/months, so a day of just lying around, reading or knitting would actually be splendid. I don't really need to cook as we have left-overs from yesterday, so I just need to type this, then I can have a snooze...

Woman Lying on a Bench (1913) Carl Larsson

Just as a change, I chose this beautiful bright image by Carl Larsson (1853-1919)  as I always turned to the Scandinavians at this time of year - I find they understand the importance of light and revel in presence of it.  This image speaks of an airy, bright afternoon, with nothing better to do than recline in the garden with a book, a dog and a cat. It is not warm as our lass has a few blankets, so maybe it is that crisp, blinding winter sunshine that fills you up and she couldn't resist bathing in it.

Azaleas (1906)

Larsson seems to have had a very unhappy childhood; he wrote in his autobiography Jag (published posthumously in 1931) that his early life was one of poverty, his father's poor life choices and moving from one poor living arrangement to another, where disease was prevalent. He was saved by art - his teacher in the poor school encouraged him to apply to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts and he never looked back, despite feeling like the outsider in such a prestigious establishment. He managed while studying to earn enough money to support his parents, which is the sort of phrase that makes me groan, but it is to his credit.

Still Life with Fruit and Tankard (1877) Karin Bergöö

While searching for his style, Larsson moved to Paris, but was not compelled by Impressionism slide towards abstraction.  He liked the plein-air style of painting and joined a Scandinavian colony of painters at Grez-sur-Loing, where in 1883 he met Karin Bergöö, a fellow painter. The couple fell in love and married, their daughter Suzanne arriving the year after in 1884.

Karin with Suzanne at Grez Sur-Loing (1885)

In 1888, Karin's father gave the couple a cottage, Lilla Hyttnäs, in Sundborn near his home city of Falun in Sweden.  The couple began to decorate the home in a combination of the National Art Style, William Morris and Arts and Crafts, with simple furniture and light colours until it became one of the most famous homes in Sweden. It was here that Karin could design and create the furniture and clothes that appear in many of her husband's paintings.  In return, Karin and their eight children became Larsson's models in his work, creating a light, bright, slightly insular world.

Hide and Seek (1898)

For all intents and purposes, they are William and Jane Morris (if Jane had come from a wealthy background that took her art seriously and William had been poor), without the issue of Rossetti, and the Larsson's pale sunshiney world is one I really love and would appreciate being part of. I didn't know the clothes and some of the furniture that fill the rooms were designed by Karin, and I think it adds to the ideal of blissful isolation and self-sufficiency. That is undoubtedly Karin on the bench with the dog and cat and I now wonder if she designed that bench. I am currently typing this with my own dog in a similar position as Karin's and I think the tiny black and white kitten and shiny tan of the dog compliment the colours of the pillow and blankets perfectly. Everything fits, is cozy and beautiful and is the perfect domesticity you could imagine.

Carl and Karin Larsson

Carl died the same week as Byam Shaw in 1919, aged only 66 with Karin joining him a decade later.  Their children ensured that their family home was preserved for the nation and that their parents work was honoured.  I was pleased to see that Karin, whilst not as widely known as Carl, is beginning to be spoken in the same breath as her husband and not in a 'his wife, also an artist' manner.  Carl and Karin are again being recognised as the Swedish Art Power Couple they undoubtedly were and there is even a tv mini series about their love, which I bet is gorgeous.

I'm off to recline on a bench so I'll catch you tomorrow for our penultimate Catvent...

Saturday 21st December - Witness My Act and Deed

 Well, here we are on the shortest day of the year (or longest, if you are my Australian friends) and it always feels a bit like a turning point in the year. I am cooking a Christmas dinner for Grampy Stonell today and so this will be a busy dark day for us, then the days will start stretching out towards the Spring.

The Fluffle Triplets were just saying what everyone else was thinking...

I am filled with glee by today's offering as it is a cat being a proper little sod. This isn't messing with your wool, this is wholescale vandalism...

Witness My Act and Deed (1881) Frank Paton

Look at the little ratbag! He regrets nothing! In some sort of legal office (I can see the top of a conveyancing document, and I think the unfortunate document having ink splashed all over it might be a will or deed to some property) the office cat has decided to get involved.  The double meaning of the title - to witness a document by signing it, or we are witnessing the little cat's act and deed in toppling an ink pot - is typical of Paton's work. He seems to have used comic situations and cute cats, and it made his fortune.

The Fairest One of All

Like some of the other artists we've met this month, Frank Paton appears to have used his own pets as models.  The family of tabby cats that crop up repeatedly in his work can be seen in both allegorical and literal pieces, such as A Proud Mother which is arguably the wellspring for all the kittens that are up to japes in his other works.

A Proud Mother
(Or Kittens of Destruction: The Origin Story)

So, we can see the little kitten being washed by her mother is probably the same one as in The Fairest One of All.  Either of the all-tabby kittens behind her could be the wrecker of legal documents.

Kittens Playing Around a Saddle

What I am finding very interesting is that Paton's work isn't in the newspapers as much as I was expecting, given its commercial, charming nature.  There are quite a few recent articles on him (by recent I mean from 1960 onwards, it's all relative) including a mention of The Fairest One of All when it was up for auction in 1996.  It was included in an art section of the Whiskas stand at the Centenary National Cat Show with a piece by Louis Wain (for those who don't know Whiskas is a leading brand of cat food in the UK) (It is said to sound like 'Whiskers' but I've never thought about the way it is spelt) (I digress). Even more interestingly, when The Fairest One of All sold at auction in 1988 it reached £28,000 (which astonished Country Life who wrote a short piece about how unexpectedly popular he suddenly was) but by the 1996 cat show, the auction price expected was only £10-15K which indicates to me that maybe the Frank Paton bubble had popped by that point.  However, Mr Paton was a commercial genius and didn't need the applause of the art critic press...

A Frank Paton Christmas Card

As Paton was so good at humorous sketches of animals, he teamed up with art dealer Edward Ernest Leggatt to produce etched Christmas Cards, beginning in 1880 and continuing until his death in 1909. Each one contained a central scene of animals doing funny, usually seasonally appropriate things, and the border would be little, rougher sketches on the same theme. When Paton fell out with the organisers of the annual Royal Academy exhibition, he quit the establishment path because he didn't need it anymore.  His fame was such that people flocked to buy his accessible pieces for half a guinea each.  There were so many produced that you can easily buy them still on places like eBay.

I was pleased to find Paton's image of a cat being actively naughty in such a destructive way.  We are lucky that our cat is not a smasher/pusher/spiller and merely a menacer of wool. I think TikTok is built on videos of cats breaking things in a careless and arguably malicious manner to comic effect and so Paton's little legal saboteur would fit right in.  I wonder if the image was inspired by a true event? It reminds me of this...

Somewhere, in the 15th century, a cat was waiting to mess things up for a monk.  It is proof enough that cats think everything we do is less important than feeding them. To be honest, half the time they are probably not wrong.

See you tomorrow.

Friday 20th December - The End of the Story

Now look, we've reached the 20th, that means Catvent is almost over! This has actually been less stressful than normal blogvents and thank you to everyone who has sent messages and left comments, they are all truly appreciated.  Onwards with today's offering!

Well, that's one way of looking at it.

Today's picture is by an artist that I like but don't talk about very much...

The End of the Story (1900) Marcus Stone

I obviously went for Marcus Stone's 1900 painting The End of the Story because the cat looks like Chairman Meow.  A bit like Blair Leighton, I really like the fact that Marcus Stone found his groove and never looked back, and his thing was frilly dressed ladies thinking about love. The Queen newspaper reported its exhibition like this - '"The End of the Story" by Marcus Stone is one of those sweet studies of a young lady seated in a garden with her just finished romance in her hand, with which this artist has familiarised us.' Now, by 'familiarised us' is The Queen saying that Mr Stone is a bit repetitious?

Two's Company, Three's None (1862-90)

Well, yes, there's that one...

In Love (1888)

..and that one, yes...

Welcome Footsteps (1898)

Okay, yes, he was very good at white frocks in gardens, but then he also did this one...

On the Road from Waterloo to Paris (1863)

On the whole, he was better at white frocks in gardens. I think my favourite has to be this one....

Reverie (1899)

I think it is something about the combination of her expression and the weird summer sun/moon in the sky behind her that makes it a magical piece.  When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper described it as 'a graceful presentment of a young lady' but I find the piece, especially the face, quite haunting.  Back to the cat...

That is a lovely cat and he is perfectly happy with tickles even if she isn't paying attention.  The girl is on the last page of her book.  I wonder why the newspaper assumed it was a romance? Is that a safe bet as his paintings were mostly to do with romantic interludes? We think she's reading 'And reader, I married him!' and actually she's reading 'I dismembered him so well, they were finding bits for weeks.' Either way, her cat loves her.

Marcus Stone, who grew a moustache and never looked back

Marcus Stone is an interesting chap - son of Frank Stone, also a famous painter, he was trained as an artist by his father until he started exhibiting at the Royal Academy aged 18, which is extremely impressive. Sadly, Frank Stone then dropped dead a year later, prompting many tributes and obituaries in the newspapers.  I must add that when Marcus Stone died in 1921, he also got glowing tributes including a very impressive one that stated he never missed an RA exhibition, was never rejected and each painting he sent was already sold before it hit the wall.

I find the scenery in today's painting interesting.  Yes, she's in a garden (as they always are), but if you look at the trees, it looks like summer.  However, around her, the leaves have fallen and are filling the courtyard.  Has so much time passed since she opened the book? Was it that gripping a tale that she missed the seasons changing, so entranced with the story? What I notice from a lot of Stone's women is that they are preoccupied.  I would hazard a guess that, to badly quote Charli XCX, she is busy thinkin' 'bout boys, but there is sometimes a man in the picture with her. Is the problem that he isn't the man she's thinking about? Maybe the painting is trying to tell us to be careful at getting distracted as it is later than you think and your life is passing without you noticing.  

Actually, maybe Marcus Stone is saying that there are worse ways to spend your life than with a good book and a nice cat.  I can't argue with that.

See you tomorrow.

Thursday 19th December - Marigolds

Argh! Where is my time going?! It is currently 4am and I'm baking a loaf of potato and leek bread to go with a friend's present while answering emails and generally trying to remember everything I have to do before next Tuesday. And I have a food shop to do! However, I'm awake and functioning (sort of) so let's crack on!

Mr Fluffles wasn't in the mood to embrace stardom...

Okay, I'm calmer now.  It's Day 19 of Catvent and so I'm down to my last (and probably favourite) cats in paintings which I have been saving.  Here is today's offering...

Marigolds (1873) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

How many times have I looked at this gorgeous painting and not seen the cat? When I was looking through different paintings with cat content I was surprised to see this come up as I had never noticed his little face behind the girl and her flowers, but there he is, being a malevolent little ratbag...

Okay, yes, he is very cute but I've told you how I feel about cats attacking my wool. To his shame, Mr Walker has been known to encourage the Chairman's pillaging of my wool basket while I should 'Not the blue! The pink one is acrylic, he can have that!'

Marigolds is what I think of as a 'Kelmscott Painting' - it comes out of Rossetti's time at Kelmscott Manor with the Morris family (without William, obviously). It goes by many different names -'Marigolds', 'The Bower Maiden', 'The Gardener's Daughter', 'Fleur-de-Marie' and is what you would expect from a Rossetti painting, especially of this time.  Here we have a golden haired lovely in a green frock, looking beautiful while doing something feminine. A bit like this one...

Oh la! I'm hanging some mistletoe (1860)

And this one...

Look at me! I can't play a violin! (1872)

So, yes, the man had a type. and excuse me, but they all look quite similar even when it is apparently not the same woman.  To be fair, the 1860 painting Hanging the Mistletoe isn't going to be Alexa Wilding who didn't become Rossetti's model until after 1865, but come on, he knew what he liked. So let's talk about the girl in Marigolds...

Rossetti described his intentions for the painting like this - 'It represents a young girl (fair) in a tapestried chamber, with a jar containing marybuds...which she is arranging on a shelf. Near her a cat is playing with a ball of worsted.' He also likened it to Veronica Veronese, above with the violin. That answered one question I had about the alternate title 'Fleur de Marie' as a name for marsh marigolds are marybuds, so 'Flowers of Mary.' Who is the girl?  Rossetti referred to her as 'Little Annie' and that she was a gardener's daughter. Theodore Watts-Dunton later identified her as a maid who worked at Kelmscott.  You know me, none of that is good enough for me. So, off to the records I go!

Sketch for Marigolds

The problem in tracking people with a fairly normal name is that there are normally far too many candidates.  Also, I'm tracking a girl who is a maid in a village, and they notoriously move around.  I'm left looking for 'Annie' who was a maid and, I'm guessing, a teenager in 1873.  That narrows it down. Similar to Mrs Donkin's Cook (who I wrote about here) this is not an easy pursuit, but I had a look at the 1871 census.  Luckily, if our lass was in Kelmscott in 1871 then it isn't a large place and I should be able to spot her.  Or anyone called Annie.  Or anyone aged around 15-20ish.  No, no luck there as there were no likely candidates, no gardener's daughters of that age.  If you are after an agricultural labourer, you're in luck and of course, that could be what was recorded, but none with daughters of an appropriate age.  Obviously, a family could have magically moved in to Kelmscott in 1872, with a gardener and his titian-haired daughter Annie and I would have no way of knowing. How frustrating!  There is one suggestion and I'm relying on a little supposition and the word 'possibly' but it's Christmas so humour me.

Anne Luker Allen was born in about 1860 in Little Faringdon, just over the meadows from Kelmscott Manor (as Burne-Jones found out as he travelled to and fro to Buscot Park). In 1871, she was living with her uncle Philip Comley, an agricultural labourer.  The reason Miss Allen caught my eye was that by 1881, Anne had come to Kelmscott to work as a domestic servant and was now known as Annie. Annie Allen had somewhat of a complicated life - she was the illegitimate daughter of Jane Looke (or Looker or Luker or any different versions of the above).  Until 1864, Annie actual went by the elaborate name of Anne Gosling Brooks Looker, possibly to counteract the shame of being illegitimate, as noted on her baptism record.  I wondered if her out-of-wedlock status was part of the reason she was handed over to her uncle and aunt to raise, moving to another aunt, Harriet, who lived in Kelmscott. After 1864, Annie adopted the surname of her father/stepfather/who knows, James Allen.  James was from Coleshill in Oxfordshire/Berkshire and was listed as a agricultural labourer, sadly not a gardener.  However, and here's where I got excited, in 1861, the Allen family had a lodger, Stephen Obadiah Oborne, aged 20, who was a gardener. Now, I'm not saying Mr Oborne (who went on to be a head gardener in Somerset) knocked up Jane Looker and went off to tend his garden leaving James Allen to marry her four years later, after which their other children were born, but it is a mighty coincidence.  It might be as simple as Oborne taught James Allen how to be a gardener and that is what Annie liked to think her father (who she doesn't seem to have lived with, unlike her siblings) did. It might be as simple as Rossetti thinking all agricultural labourers were gardeners. Either way, I think there is a good chance that Annie Allen is our lass.

She still looks like Alexa Wilding if you ask me.

As for the cat, I think it is there to indicate playfulness, a little naughtiness and domestic disruption. I doubt that is any reflection on Annie, only possibly in Rossetti's mind for the character he was portraying.  You know how much I love the Language of Flowers and marigolds are meant to symbolise grief and sorrow, but marsh marigolds are actually kingcups or buttercups, which represent childishness. I don't think that is the point (no matter how mournful and young she looks). Rossetti called the marsh marigold 'the earliest of spring flowers' and if I was feeling fanciful, I would say that represented Annie herself, the little girl who came out too early in her mother's life. 

Annie went on to marry Thomas Wheeler, a farmer and had four children, three boys and lastly a daughter, Lily Annie. Sadly, she died in 1905, aged only 45 years old.

Blimey, maybe this is Trag-vent after all...