Fanny Cornforth

Fanny was an important woman in the life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and one of his models.  Women were very much a part of the lives of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, some of them as mistresses, others as muses.  Georgiana Burne Jones and Elizabeth Siddall, both of them married to painters, had some artistic talent but found that domestic life and motherhood made it difficult for them to compete with the men...although they did each spend time trying to study art or to produce artistic works...
Most of the early members of the Brotherhood were rather shy and awkward with women so the ones that they met and formed relationships with became very important to them.

Gabriel Rossetti was something of a womaniser and met Fanny, in 1856.  She was born to a working class family in Sussex, and her birth name was Sarah Cox.
She was a servant, and she became Rossetti’s mistress.  He was then engaged to Elizabeth Siddall, but Lizzie was often living away from home because of her health.  It was feared that she had TB and might be dying.

Fanny modelled for him.  See was a beautiful curvaceous young woman with golden hair and regular features.

She began to be called Fanny... and worked for Rossetti and kept him company while Elizabeth was not there.  In 1860 however  Lizzie had recovered her health to an extent and persuaded her long term fiancé to marry her.   Fanny left him, and married a mechanic called Hughes.  His stepfather’s surname was Cornforth and she adopted that name.  However her marriage did not last long and she and her husband separated.  She had probably felt that she needed to marry for security, once Rossetti had left her for his fiancée.  She had no wealthy family or private fortune to support her…

Gabriel’s marriage was also a short one as Elizabeth became very depressed after the death of her first baby and died of a laudanum overdose. 
Fanny moved in with him, after he had lost his wife…. becoming his mistress and keeping house for him.   She was not educated and many of his friends disliked her and thought her coarse and foolish... and they tried to persuade him to break off the affair.   

But Gabriel cared for her, although his life was becoming increasingly difficult he remained loyal to her... He had an ongoing relationship, possibly an emotional affair, with Janey Morris during that time but he kept Fanny and looked after her and she cared for him.  During their on and off affair, she sat for approximately 60 paintings and he immortalised her beauty…in paintings like “Found”, Boccia Baciata”, and “the Fair Rosamund”…

Some of the working class girls (Like Jane Burden) who married middle class painters educated themselves and “learned to fit in” with society.  Fanny remained “outside” the charmed circle and did not try to make herself into “a lady…”  But Gabriel clearly liked her as she was….

As he grew older, he became heavily dependent on chloral and alcohol and his health declined.  He aged rapidly, became depressed and could not paint. His family intervened to have him looked after, during the 1870s, and dismissed Fanny. Gabriel was only in his late 40s but his drug addiction had made him seem much older.

He wanted to provide for Fanny when she had to leave and gave her a gift of some of his paintings.

Fanny’s first husband died and she married another man, a publican, called John Schott, after her dismissal from working for Rossetti... she and her new husband ran a pub... And she continued to keep in contact with her former lover…helping to look after him at times.  However his drinking and addiction to chloral were destroying his sanity…

After his death Fanny sold some of his paintings... and her second husband died…She was looked after by a stepson, but sadly degenerated into dementia...She died in 1909.