A good year

24 Hour Museum covers the most recent acquisitions of the Brontë Parsonage Museum and quotes Ann Dinsdale, the Collections Manager:

“There was an auction last month at Bonham’s in London,” explained Collections Manager at the museum, Ann Dinsdale, “and we acquired this portrait by Branwell of Maria Taylor, and a letter to her from Charlotte.”
“The Taylor Family lived nearby at Stanley Manor – they were quite an important family, quite influential. The father was instrumental in getting Patrick Bronte his position at the church, of which they were trustees.”
The oval portrait depicting the young lady with dark hair and porcelain skin will join another work by Branwell of her brother, Robert, which the museum previously acquired from the same source. Branwell had a studio in Bradford from which he attempted to make a living as a portrait painter before becoming an alcoholic and dying aged just 31 in 1848.
The letter from Charlotte Brontë to Maria is brief, changing arrangements for an outing.
“It’s very interesting,” said Ann of the acquisitions, “because the Brontës were believed to be quite isolated at the Parsonage – the fact that this exists suggests there was more socialising going on between the two families than we thought.”
The painting is in good condition, while the letter needs some conservation work. They were acquired with generous funding from the V&A Purchase Fund and the Art Fund, plus a donation from a member of the Brontë Society.
The items will go on display in 2008 along with more acquisitions made in November – three envelopes containing locks of hair from Charlotte and Anne Bronte, and a ring that belonged to Charlotte. They were given to Ellen Nussey, a good friend of Charlotte’s.
“It’s been quite a good year for acquisitions,” commented Ann. (Caroline Lewis)

The Times reviews The Writer’s Brush: Paintings Drawings and Sculpture by Writers by Donald Friedman and the Brontës, which are featured in the book, are mentioned:

Art, to the Brontë sisters, was just a part of their preparation to become wives and governesses. And their abilities were fairly modest, as Charlotte acknowledged. “It is not enough to have the artist’s eye, one must also have the artist’s hand to turn the first gift to practical account,” she lamented. But in Emily’s little picture of a spaniel dashing wildly over the heather we can glimpse the spirit of the woman who gave us Wuthering Heights. (Rachel Campbell Johnston)

Cathy Salter and her Columbia Tribune column have appeared repeatedly on this blog. No matter the topic she's always able to slip a Brontë reference:

We read our novels aided by two flashlights and noted with awe that Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters created their timeless literary masterpieces without ever experiencing the magic of electricity.

Bill Hayes, author of the first biography of Henry Gray, the Gray behind Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy describes his subject like this:

Gray, he discovered, had left no diaries, no letters. There was no record of his birth, scant mention of him in encyclopedias. Hayes kept digging, and learned that Gray died of smallpox in 1861, age 34, just three years after "Gray's Anatomy" was published. Finally, in the 100th anniversary edition of "Gray's Anatomy" he found a photograph of his subject: "diminutive, deep-set eyes, a pint-size Heathcliff." (Edward Guthmann in San Francisco Chronicle)

Valerie Martin's Tresspass is once again reviewed and the Wuthering Heights connection mentioned this time in The Miami Herald. Answer Girl talks about Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey.

This thread on Sondheim & Us discusses Jane Eyre 1944.

Categories: Books, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights