3467. EBB to Hiram Powers

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 303.

Casa Guidi.

Sunday. [?10] [September 1854] [1]

My dear Mr Powers,

Will you be very goodnatured & come to us tonight .. now .. as soon as you will? Mr Leighton, [2] a young artist from Rome will be here–

Most truly yours

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Massachusetts Historical Society.

1. Dating based on EBB’s reference to Frederic Leighton. In a letter to W.C. Cartwright, dated 31 August [1854], Adelaide Sartoris reports from Bagni di Lucca that Leighton had “just gone off to Florence to work for a week or two” (ms at Northamptonshire). We place this letter, then, on the second Sunday of his stay in Florence.

2. Frederic Leighton (1830–96), afterwards (1896) Baron Leighton of Stretton, became one of the leading artists of his generation. He had met the Brownings in Rome the previous winter when he was working on a painting entitled “Cimabue’s Madonna Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence.” Its exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1855 and subsequent purchase by Queen Victoria marked the beginning of a successful career. He illustrated EBB’s “A Musical Instrument” for The Cornhill Magazine of July 1860 and later designed the monument for her tomb. He was elected president of the Royal Academy in 1878.

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