Penelope Boothby

Thomas Banks Monument to Penelope Boothby, marble, 1793, St Oswald's Church,

 Ashbourne, Derbyshire

In St Oswald's Church in Ashbourne you can find Thomas Banks' 1793 monument to Penelope Boothby, who died just before her sixth birthday. It sits in the family's memorial chapel alongside more conventional monuments from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, showing husbands and wives lying on their backs, eyes open, hands clasped in prayer. The contrast with Banks' creation is striking, bringing increased emotional depth to an already beautiful piece of sculpture. There is the white purity of the carrara marble which is sparkingly luminous in the dark interior of the church, against the warm burnish of the older figures' alabaster. There is the scale: the life-size child seems so tiny and fragile amongst the solid, adult figures which fill the rest of the chapel. In both cases the jolt is like seeing the small, white coffin of a child's funeral. But Banks' really striking innovation is to place Penelope on her side, naturalistically posed as if she were sleeping. You approach her from behind, it feels like an intrusion, and walk round the tiny bare feet to see the relaxed slumber of the closed eyes and slightly parted lips as her head rests easily on a pillow. Her hands are not quite clasped in prayer. Her skirts spread out in rippling folds which suggest life perhaps ebbing away. There is perhaps to great an emphasis on the body beneath, a hint of sexualisation in the bared shoulder where her gown has slipped, but ultimately Banks' has presented a wonderfully beautiful image of a child, frozen in eternal sleep. The preparatory model for the monument is in the John Soane Museum in London. It allegedly reduced members of the royal family to tears when it was exhibited at Somerset House and you can believe it. The dark patina of the plaster enhances the girl's features making the face all the more affecting.

Thomas Banks, Monument to Penelope Boothby, plaster, 1793, John Soane Museum

What is even more remarkable, however, is that Banks' was not the only memorial which Penelope Boothby's father commissioned. In 1792 he asked family friend Henry Fuseli to paint her. The Apotheosis of Penelope Boothby shows her, not as a small child, but as an older girl on the cusp of womanhood. She is being carried up to heaven by an angel, guided by a cherub at the top of the vertical canvas. The earth is represented as a shadowy semi-circle below; a butterfly and a broken vase rather crudely symbolise the fragility of mortal life. The ghostly near monochrome palette and the dynamic diagonals of the composition can be seen as typical of Fuseli but for an artist who often dwelt on the macabre or the outlandishly shocking, there is a softness too. The diaphanous skirts create a sense that Penelope is already losing her corporeal form, yet she is looking and reaching upwards with pink cheeks and reddened lips, almost as of she is finding her heavenly (after)life. The angel, whose wings fade into the misty sky behind, looks down with maternal solicitude, her arms reaching round to, help her daughter on her last journey.

Henry Fuseli The Apotheosis of Penelope Boothby, 1792-4, Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Despite dying before her sixth birthday, Penelope Boothby was also painted by Joshua Reynolds: his 1788 portrait of her wearing an oversized mob cap was an instant success, and continued to be recognised as a painting iconic enough for John Everett Millais to reference it in his 1879 painting Cherry Ripe. Reynolds represents Penelope as an idealised image of girlhood, luminous in white purity against a dark, almost threatening woodland landscape. Her covered clasped hands, the crossed shawl on her bodice, the cocoon of her skirts and the oppressive fussiness of her cap restrict and  internalise her. But her unruly curls dangle freely and her eyes look off the side as if her thoughts are doing the same. 

Joshua Reynolds, Penelope Boothby, 1788

Penelope's parents never recovered from the loss of their daughter. They lived separate lives afterwards: her mother returned to her parents' home and her maiden name. Her father, Brooke Boothby, sought multiple ways to memorialise his daughter, including publishing a book of poetry Sorrows Sacred to the Memory of Penelope. Always extravagant in terms of money and emotion, he continued to live to excess, eventually losing the family home, Ashbourne Hall, and dying in poverty in France. Boothby had always been a friend and patron of artists: he referred to Fuseli as 'the great wizard' and in 1783 organised an extravagant outdoor party for the artist which included masques, poetry-readings and medieval costumes. He supported Joseph Wright of Derby, commissioning at least one portrait from him, purchasing landscapes and supporting the artist's first London exhibition. Wright's painting of Sir Brooke shows him as a creature of nature, reclining in woodland with a copy of Rousseau. Sir Brooke had met Rousseau in the 1760s when the philosopher was living in temporary exile in Britain, and had later visited him in Paris. He also published the first French text of Rousseau's Confessions in England. 

Joseph Wright of Derby, Sir Brooke Boothby, 1781, Tate

The similarity of pose between the father's portrait and Banks' memorial to his daughter is often remarked on, but the link seems tenuous. The posed informality of Boothby from the figure against his cheek to the unbuttoned waistcoat is a world away from the restful sleep of the tomb.