The Coral Necklace

1871

The Coral Necklace, 1871. Frederick Sandys (British, 1829–1904). Black, brown, and red chalk; sheet: 55.9 x 39.2 cm (22 x 15 7/16 in.); secondary support: 57.1 x 40 cm (22 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1997.7 Closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Frederick Sandys was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and played an active role in the bohemian artistic, literary, and theatrical circles of the day in London. This is a portrait of Mary Emma Jones, the artist’s favorite model, mistress, and mother of his nine children. An extraordinarily skilled draftsman, here he worked in tone rather than line, delicately drawing in chalk on a rough textured sheet and leaving the low points of the paper untouched to produce a stippled, hazy effect. Frederick Sandys and his mistress, Mary Emma Jones, the sitter for this portrait, adopted the names "Mr. and Mrs. Neville" to mask the unconventional nature of their relationship.