SD1752. Journal Entry of Edward A. Spring
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 369 (in part).
[Florence]
June 3rd 1854
I went to call on the Shaws. Cousin T[homas Chase]. staid at home, having a little cold. Mr. Shaw invited me to come next Sunday with cousin T. to dinner. We called there again before that, and had a very pleasant time.
Page, whose studio we went to in Rome, and who Browning, who is a very reliable critic, says is the best living colourist, and also the first artist, has just made Mrs. Shaw a present of a painting of Raphael’s Madonna della Segiola, of which he copied the outline when in Florence, and since he has been in Rome he has painted it with his own idea of colour, so that the splendid colouring and exquisite drawing are combined in this wonderful picture. Page has not given the face of the Madonna the divinity of Raphael’s, but he has made the two children more beautiful, especially the little Jesus, and he has made the flesh appear like life.
The next day, June 4th, we went there to dinner and had a very pleasant time indeed. Mr. and Mrs. Shaw told Powers that he ought to go home and settle his family at Raritan Bay, and then go there himself for a home, and keep up his studio here. Mr. Powers seemed to rather like the idea, but in his way of non commital, said neither one way or the other.
That evening we called at the Brownings’, and had a delightful evening. The Shaws and Mr. Powers were there also.
They have very pleasantly situated rooms, nearly opposite to the Palazzo Pitti, and their parlor is a sort of curiosity-shop full of old paintings, and frames, and furniture and tapestry hangings.
Mr. Browning is a splendid looking man, not exactly handsome, but with a magnificent head and eyes. Mrs. Browning is a very sweet and tender looking woman, but looks as if she had been through a great deal of sickness and suffering. One wonders, and it seems so strange that such a poor and feeble little body should belong to such a mind. Her voice is weak and small like a little child’s.
Page has made a portrait of Mr. Browning and has presented it to Mrs. Browning, who is delighted with such a gift. It is a most magnificent thing. Browning is enchanted with it, and his wife said to Mrs. Shaw that she was afraid he would share the fate of Narcissus, (who, you know was changed into that flower for gazing so at his own image in the water.) Powers was evidently very much pleased with it, but if one had never seen him before, he would have thought he did not care much about it. But he said a good deal about it for him. I sat where I could see the picture and the Brownings, and hear the talking, and it was real enjoyment.
Browning sat for this picture fifty-four times, of always an hour and a half, and sometimes two. So that it has taken an immense while to paint it, and it is most carefully finished. Yet it is small, only giving the life-sized head, and is not much more than a foot square.
We took tea there. I do not know as I remember an evening so pleasantly spent as that. Browning talked a great deal, and I think I never heard anything better told than his description of a German dinner that they went to in Rome at a German friend’s of theirs, the antiquarian Dr. Braun, and how as they came out he said to his wife: “What an excellent dinner!” at the very same moment that she said: “What a detestable dinner!” and the “excellent” and “detestable” came together.
I saw little “Flush”, but poor fellow, his hair has all come off. The Italian climate does not agree with him as well as it does with Mrs. Browning, who says she is never well out of Italy, and that is her home.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
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