A Stunning Man

 I love finding the names of models behind Pre-Raphaelite paintings as I think the histories of these (often working-class) women are important in regards to the creations of the works. Over the last few years especially, we seem to have made great strides in uncovering the names and lives of all the fleeting models who appeared in one or two pictures but today I'm going to tell you about a model who appeared in some of the best known Pre-Raphaelite (and adjacent) images and continued to work well into the twentieth century.  However, when I read the name in the newspaper I had no idea who they were. Let's change that today because this Pre-Raphaelite stunner is a bit different, not least because he's a chap.  Say hello to Domenico Antonio Reitzo...

Sketch for King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884) Edward Burne-Jones

Now with the lovely Mr Reitzo, there is a lot of dreamy mythology which I am in no mood to shatter because I think it is an important part of who he was and what he meant to countless generations of artists.  This is a chap who spanned artworks from John Everett Millais until the Second World War, and was still modelling into his 80s. I will attempt to tell his story as best I can but I suspect when we start looking, his contribution to art will be enormous.

The story goes that while Valentine Cameron Prinsep and his friend Edward Burne-Jones were in Italy in 1859, he saw a small Italian boy running down the street. So bewitched was he with the child's appearance that he sponsored the boy (and possibly also his family?) to come to England and continue modelling.  While that is a lovely story, Domenico Reitzo, also known as Prinzi and 'Dom' to the countless artists he modelled for, wasn't born until December 1861 or possibly 1863 depending if you rely on the 1939 census or the certificates he brought from Italy. However, there are further issues with this timing when you see some of the paintings he posed for, so I'm guessing he was actually born earlier but still brought over to London as a child to act as an artist's model.  There are some definite issues of child welfare, and I'm not at all sure his parents were brought with him.  Goodness, the nineteenth century was exciting, wasn't it...?

As a child, Dom was very much in demand, but it was when it grew up that he became the superstar of the Victorian art world.  He was allegedly one of the first models at the Slade, employed by Edward Poynter, and he continued to model there every year until the 1940s. The painting that brought him to celebrity was undoubtedly Millais' image of Walter Raleigh as a boy...

The Boyhood of Raleigh (1870) John Everett Millais

You see the problem of his birth-date as Dom is not one of the little boys, but the man who is pointing out to sea. If you believe Prinsep's account that he met a little boy in the late 1850s then that could be a chap in his late teens with a false moustache, but there is no way he is a 10 year old. From the Slade work, Edward Poynter used him in a fresco in St Stephen's in Dulwich for the Trial and Martyrdom of St Stephen between 1871 and 1873. It seems amazing that Dom managed to fit this fairly steady modelling work around making and selling his own ice cream, which feels a bit of a stereotype for an Italian man in England but I bet a handsome man with a cornetto is popular everywhere...

Habour of Refuge (1872) Frederick Walker

Here we have Dom as the chap with the scythe, representing the inevitability of death as he cuts down people like grass. F G Stephen's reviewing the piece in The Athenaeum made much of the labourer's 'lithe limbs' in 'an agony of energy' and he seems to have turned the head of the young woman about to come down the steps. The romantic potential of the young man is something that the artists who flocked to him couldn't wait to exploit...

Harmony (1877) Frank Dicksee

Harmony was a painting reported as featuring the handsome features of our chap, but the writer in the newspaper in 1939 attributed it to Luke Fildes.  I can only imagine that they meant this one, and the young man looking devotedly at his lady love certainly looks like Dom.  What I love about this is that Dicksee was so young when he painted it, only 24 years old.  The girl was Hilda Spencer (not Hilda Carline Spencer), a young art student at Queens College where Dicksee was teaching, so these three young people produced such a wonderful, romantic image.

Romeo and Juliet (1884) Frank Dicksee

As Dicksee had scored so big with Harmony, it's unsurprising that he would try and recapture the magic in another picture and so we have 1884's Romeo and Juliet. This image was one of the plates in a gift book of the play in 1884 and was described in The Bookseller as featuring 'such a man and woman as Shakespeare must have pictured to himself.' 

In the meantime, Dom was also living a normal life. In 1890, he married local lass Mary Richards, signing the register with a cross as he was illiterate.  What I found interesting is that, despite being unable to write or (allegedly) read, Reitzo was never frightened to come forward and do the right thing in terms of participating in legal proceedings.  There are at least two instances of his involvement in crime (on the right side, I hasten to say), once where he tackled a mugger and made a citizen's arrest, and again where he witnessed a fight that resulted in a death.  He went to the Old Bailey as a witness testifying in Italian and English and putting up with cross-questioning.  

Speak! Speak! (1895) John Everett Millais

At the same time, he was still appearing in famous paintings. He was the startled husband, crying out at the spirit of his dead wife in Speak! Speak! and the Bromsgrove and Droitwich Messenger called the work 'one of the principal points of attraction in this year's Academy pictures.'

King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884) Edward Burne-Jones

I have found newspaper articles that claim Dom modelled for Leighton, Alma Tadema, Watts, Rossetti, Perugini, Shannon and Ricketts, Harry Bates, Singer Sargent, Orpen, Sickert and Glyn Philpot which is a really extraordinary collection of artists.  He was King Cophetua in Burne-Jones' picture, which is so important I can't believe I never asked who that was, but once you see his face, you can spot him everywhere. In an article written about him in 1949, it was claimed that every living artist who had studied in London would have drawn him at the very least. In total, he posed for around 80 years which is an astonishing contribution to art.

He and Mary had children and continued to live their extraordinary/ordinary life, appearing in the 1911 census living at 50 Lancaster Street in Southwark (which is definitely not there anymore, which is a shame as I am constantly looking for people to propose for Blue Plaques) and he is listed as an 'ice cream vendor.'  Of the seven children they had, only two, Betsy and Mary, survived. By 1921, Mary is still living at home, although has been married and now has her son, Domenico (obviously named for her Dad) living with them as well. They had moved to the very lovely (if it is original, and I'd love a building historian's view on this) Fryers Street in Vauxhall. The 1920s also saw Dom pose for the Exeter war memorial as one of the soldier's around the base...

He's in his 60s by this point and still working and looking glorious.  By the 1930s, he had moved to Grace House in Kennington, and the newspaper article on him recorded his 'two surviving sons' had done well in life, one an engineer and the other a solicitor - possibly they meant son-in-laws or even grandsons by this point. Mary's son is listed as a baker in 1939, on Kensington Park Road, which still seems to be an Italian eatery according to Google Maps.

The South London Observer ran an article on Dom's career in July 1939.  In this version of the story, the little boy was running along the road in St John's Wood when he was discovered by Prinsep and whisked away to artistic stardom.  It reported on the queues of Royal Academicians who lined the streets vying for his services (which is a brilliant visual) and how he had been courted by the greats of the nineteenth century.  Even after all those years, and despite saving enough money to retire, our chap was far too much in love with his career to give it up. Grace House was also a very short walk to the City and Guild of London Art School on Kennington Park Road where he still modelled. Innes Fripp, head of the school in 1939, had known Dom for 45 years, stating he had posed at every art school in London. One anecdote he shared was that the model had been mistaken for Peter the Painter and almost lynched by a mob in Whitechapel.  The police hauled him off to the local station but he was rescued by some famous artists who he called and announced he was their favourite model. 

Apologies for the quality, I pinched it off the Newspaper Archive

I am delighted that finally in the 1939 register, Domenico Reitzo is finally listed as an artist model. He and Mary are living at 47 Kennington Oval (which must be Grace House, looking at the map). The London Evening News catch up with him again a decade later in June of 1949, aged almost 90 and the star of the Royal Academy once more. Henry K McElwee's picture The Old Model caused quite a stir, not only because it is a moving piece but because of the heritage. In the newspaper article, they place the grainy image above next to a Poynter sketch from St Stephen's just to emphasise that although art had changed, the inspiration behind it had not.  A further charming article from the summer of 1949 reported on a 'Grandfather's club' that had been formed and there was a weekly get-together of elderly gentlemen in Camberwell including 89 year old Mr J Webb, renown Dahlia grower and broadcaster known as 'Daddy Dahlia', and one who had been at the relief of Ladysmith and the Egyptian campaign of the 19th century, but the star was, as ever, the 'most immortal' Domenico Reitzo, praised to the hilt as the superstar he was.

Finally, on 3rd December 1949, Reitzo died. He had been taken into hospital after the death of his beloved Mary in November, and in the London Evening News, it was reported that hers was a loss he couldn't recover from. His 'immortal face' graced many walls, both domestic and gallery, and the question remains, if he is so 'immortal' why is he not better known?

Okay, so I know I shout 'retrospective!' far too much, but I am seriously going to try and get something done for Domenico Reitzo, if only in the publishing of this post.  I will try (as I always do) to get him a Blue Plaque because his contribution is massive to the art we all love. I know that our interest in models is quite a niche thing in art history in many ways, but it strikes me that it can be a bit sexist. I'm guessing, in the case of the Pre-Raphaelites, the men were a bit of a side-show with the women being the main event, and quite often they used each other as models, but there is no excuse for me not knowing this handsome chap's name. The list of people Dom posed for is extensive, so if you are more familiar with the output of some of the above and want to suggest other pictures Mr Reitzo could be the model for, email them over or pop them in the comments as I will be compiling a case for him. It's about time he got to be immortal again.