The Fate of Fairies

To be honest, the subject matter of today's post made me quite cross.  Not the person themselves, but the action of their parent, which arguably had some tragic results. Oh yes, this one is absolutely drenched with tragedy so buckle up because we are entering the fairy-world of Miss Etheline Ella Dell...

Titania's Moonlit Bower (no date)

I have recently been doing some work on fairy painting for an upcoming issue of Enchanted Living magazine and I noticed there were lots of women who painted fairies and I was unaware of a lot of them.  Hurrah, I thought, lots of lovely research and blog posts!  My first pick was Etheline Dell, mainly because 'Etheline' is a brilliant name (yes, I am that shallow) and her work was absolutely gorgeous.  I then noticed that she only lived around 26 years, and smelling a bit of misery I was happy to dig further. Blimey, this is a corker...

Feeding Time (1860) John Henry Dell

Before I knew of the awful occurrences that were to follow, I was really please to be meeting the Dell family as not only was Daddy Dell a painter (John Henry Dell 1829-1888), but also Etheline's sisters were also artists too.  John Henry was a landscape artist and illustrator, well-known enough to get a Wikipedia page, however scant. His work is very much like Feeding Time above, not my idea of awesome but I think my Nan would have loved it. There is a lot of chicken-and-calf action in bijou rural poverty. John Henry married Mary Gray, a carpenter's daughter in 1860 and the couple had a sizable family rather quickly. Daughters Alice and Aline were born in the winter of 1861 - I'm fairly sure they were twins as I can find a birth-date of 20 December 1861 for Alice and Aline is registered in the January of 1862, which would be the nearest quarter. Also, those are proper twin names. Evaline followed in the winter of 1863, with Etheline arriving in the summer of 1865. Their son Edgar was born in 1867 followed finally by Edna Adeline in 1872. As an aside, I am impressed with their dedication to matching names, however mad it all looks written down. By 1871, the family were living in the village of Thorpe in Surrey (just outside London and home to the theme park) and John Henry is listed as an Artists Landscape Painter who hopefully was making enough money to support his family.  I can't find a vast amount about him in the newspapers although he was at the Royal Academy. 

One interesting story I read about him was that he was assaulted by three 'simple-looking countrymen' in Thorpe in 1861. Reading between the lines, John Henry had accused these men of stealing his rabbits and had taken some police along to their homes to search for the rabbits.  Taking this home invasion rather badly, the local chaps came round to have a little chat with the artist and opened his gate rather roughly.  When John Henry attempted to throw them out, they gave him a right good kicking.  As the Dell's maid testified what a terrible business it all was, the judge obviously came down on the side of the Dells and the three were fined or threatened with imprisonment.  Reading the case now, obviously you can't go round beating people up, but there is no mention of whether these rough types had stolen his rabbits or what right he had to search their houses, and to be honest I get a bit of a whiff of poverty-tourist off him.  Maybe the Rural wasn't as bijou as he thought it should be, but it comes off a bit entitled.  My not-so-glowing opinion of him will reappear in a bit, don't worry.

A Surrey Cornfield (c.1890)

Anyway, I suspect that all the sisters trained as artists possibly under their father but hopefully at an art school.  Certainly by 1891, Aline, Etheline, Evaline and Edna were all working as artists (as listed in the census), although Alice had married early that year to Albert Garland, a Dairy Farmer and so her job was now 'wife'.  I've searched through some Royal Academy catalogues of the period and the only sister I can see who reached the exhibition was Etheline who appeared in 1885 with Midsummer Fairies and in 1887 with "Sing me now asleep", both drawings.  There are mentions of the work of the other sisters, such as Aline, who sold some of her work in a charitable 'fancy bazaar' in aid of the local schools, although the newspapers suggested her works were at the RA the same year, getting her mixed up with Etheline. 

"Sing me now asleep" (1887)

In 1889, Etheline exhibited some drawings at the 7th annual exhibition at the St James Gallery.  One critic described the whole exhibition as 'not brilliant' but 'several small landscape vignettes by Miss Etheline Dell would make very pretty Christmas cards.' She also provided the illustrations for Nobody's Business by Edith Carrington in 1891 (available on Abebooks where I got the image below) which were described as deft and graceful in many glowing reviews.

In Etheline's 'rural' images she is likened favourably to Helen Allingham, and at the water-colour exhibition at the Dudley Gallery in 1890, her paintings were well received. Her cottage exteriors were painted with 'infinite pain and trouble, rendering every detail in the figures and flowers with the greatest exactitude.' The review of her Midsummer Fairies was particularly good - 'Although only about four inches square, it contains no less than twenty-one complete female figures, all beautifully executed, beside water, flowers etc, the whole forming a perfect miniature landscape in pencil.'

Midsummer Fairies (1872)

I can't lie to you, I was attracted to Etheline not only because of her name and her fabulous fairy paintings but because her death just shy of her 26th birthday.  I expected some sort of illness but no, she threw herself into the Thames.  But why would a talented, successful artist do such a thing?  Rewinding a few years, Etheline had been engaged to get married.  Of a family of all those daughters, I had thought it a shame that John Henry died before he got the chance to walk any of them down the aisle.  Alice married in 1891, Aline and Evaline in 1893, and Edna around 1896.  John Henry died in 1888 and apparently, according to the newspaper coverage of Etheline's suicide, he made Etheline promise to never marry and to always remain home to look after her sister, Edna. Etheline broke off her engagement and remained home, which is enough to make me cross enough but I am puzzled as to why Edna was singled out as a cause for concern.  It was noted that all this made Etheline grow depressed, although she kept working and was, on the face of it, the most successful of the family in terms of art. However in the summer of 1891, Etheline went missing, her parasol, kid gloves and a note were found on the river bank.  The note read 'Dear Friends, take care of my sister Edna if she needs it. My kindest love to you forever, E.E.D.'  I was instantly reminded of the alleged suicide note found pinned to Elizabeth Siddal, asking people to take care of Harry, her disabled brother. According to the newspaper, her father (I'm guessing they meant her brother) offered a £10 reward if they could locate poor Etheline's body and she was duly found floating down the Thames, between the Long Ditton Ferry and Messenger's Island.

"We Found a Babe Wrapped in Swathes, Forlorn" (undated)

The inquest was reported widely; the Hull Daily Mail called it a 'Romantic Suicide of a Young Lady' which is an interesting/revolting take. They correctly called her 'an artist' and reported that she had made the deathbed promise but it had so depressed her that she had committed suicide 'whilst of unsound mind.' Several weeks later, at the end of August 1891, Etheline's brother Edgar was seen in great distress near where they had found Etheline's body. The police were called but they arrived too late and found him dead from drinking prussic acid (cyanide), a particularly awful way to go. He left a lengthy letter, addressed to the coroner. In it Edgar wrote of seeing candles snuffed out and brightly burning, of missing the candles that are snuffed out and of suddenly not worrying about death anymore.  The letter was long and had the newspapers puzzled but he wrote of not being able to deal with life which he preferred as an explanation of his death rather than 'unsound mind,' the one he received.  His problems with life included an explanation of why people mourn, why a man loves a woman and why people are alive at all.  There is little doubt that Edgar loved his sister very much and her loss was too much.

Interestingly, the remaining sisters all married in quick succession, including Edna.  Their mother lived until 1930, so she obviously didn't play any part in their marital state (as we have seen before).  I was especially interested in Edna after she had been singled out by her father and sister as a cause for concern but she married, had children and led a long and normal life.  The 1911 census gives a place to mention any disabilities, so I wondered if it was going to be something as straightforward as a visual or hearing disability but nothing is recorded so that remains a mystery. The tyranny of a parent dictating the life-path of their child is one that particularly infuriates me as I have examples of that within my own family. These things don't end well, especially not for the child involved and I struggle to see what the point of putting that burden on Etheline was.  As none of the other Dell children married until 1891 at the earliest, I wonder if it was said to all of them and only the deaths of Etheline and Edgar made them all think 'sod that, I'm getting married,' including Edna. 

Faires and Field Mouse (undated)

Whatever the truth of the life and death of Miss Etheline Ella Dell it seems a shame that such a talent artist, in a family of art lovers, should meet such a sad end when her work still brings such delight to audiences everywhere.