Emma Novello’s later life

Emma Aloysia Novello’s Portrait of Richard Cobden

A focused study of the 1861 portrait of the politician Richard Cobden by the artist Emma Aloysia Novello, supported by an Understanding British Portraits Fellowship in 2024.

The portrait

Emma Aloysia Novello painted an oil sketch of the politician Richard Cobden in Paris during May 1861, following his negotiation of what would become known as the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty. It was presented to the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds in 1953.

BC MS NCC/20/297 Emma Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello 17 August 1870 1

The lost second portrait

Emma Novello's correspondence with her brother, (Joseph) Alfred Novello, reveals the existence of a second untraced portrait of Richard Cobden painted from memory, exhibited in 1868 and 1869; although praised by strangers, her attempts to sell it to Alfred for £25 were rejected due to his dissatisfaction with the likeness, possession of other portraits of Cobden and concerns about Emma's intended use of the money for travel to Paris and Rome.

BC MS NCC/9/1/64 Sketch of Clara Novello by Edward Petre Novello

Richard Cobden and the Novellos

Richard Cobden's connections with the Novello family contributed to the repeal of 'Taxes on Knowledge' following Cobden's successful negotiation of the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty, a free trade agreement between England and France that improved European relations.

BC MS NCC/10/4/1 untitled oil sketch [portrait of Emma Aloysia Novello by Henry Sass]

Emma Novello’s early life and education

Emma Aloysia Novello studied at an Augustinian convent school in Belgium before beginning her art education at John Henry Sass's drawing academy in London. She was prevented from continuing her training at the Royal Academy Schools because they did not yet admit women as students.

BC MS NCC/10/7/16 untitled watercolour [houses against mountains]

Emma Novello’s artistic practice

Emma Novello's artistic practice was most visible in public between 1859 and 1869, through participation in temporary exhibitions and involvement in advocating for women's admission to the Royal Academy Schools.

BC MS NCC/10/3/1 Copy of Notice of Admission 1

Emma Novello’s later life

Emma Novello was diagnosed with 'melancholic mania' due to caring responsibilities for an elderly aunt and was institutionalised by her older brother (Joseph) Alfred Novello, spending two decades at Otto House Lunatic Asylum until her death in 1902.

Emma Novello in context

Emma Novello's pursuit of an artistic career, supported by her family's cultural connections and financial stability, challenged social norms and gender restrictions of her time, despite the institutional barriers and economic dependencies she faced as a woman artist in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.

Bibliography

A bibliography related to research on the artist Emma Novello, the politician Richard Cobden and the social, political, economic and cultural conditions in which they lived and worked.

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In later life Emma was diagnosed with ‘melancholic mania’ thought to have been caused by prolonged caring responsibilities for her aunt, Catherine Collins (Mary Sabilla Novello’s sister) who had been seriously injured in a carriage accident in 1881. Emma had not been included in the distribution of her parent’s legacy and relied on a monthly stipend from her brother (Joseph) Alfred Novello. He often accused her of not being able to look after money and took legal action to secure control of her finances following the death of their aunt in 1884.

Her brother (Joseph) Alfred Novello had her committed to Otto House Lunatic Asylum on 28 July 1882 when she was 67 years old. The surgeon Charles Beaumont Waller completed her medical certificate and declared her to be a ‘person of unsound mind’ rather than—in the terms of the day—a ‘lunatic’ or an ‘idiot’. He made the following observations that she was: ‘Imagining she is very wicked & that everything is too good for her; fancies police are coming to hang her; refuses to speak…sits & mopes the whole day long & in fact has perverted & distorted views about anything & everything’. Waller further noted that her siblings observed: ‘she has always been reserved & secret in her manner, & objects to anything which is done for her in the idea of it being too good for her’. It would not be appropriate to attempt to apply a retrospective diagnosis in this context, but it is important to state that behaviours exhibited by women in this period—particularly those who did not conform to social conventions—would not necessarily be pathologised now, nor be considered worthy of a two-decade-long institutionalisation.

The Novello Cowden Clarke Collection contains very little material to illuminate the time Emma spent at Otto House Lunatic Asylum. Otto House was located at North End Road in Hammersmith, and accommodated around thirty women. The large house had a walled garden and separate cottages for patients to be isolated from others. According to a report by the Commissioners in Lunacy published in the same year in which Emma was committed, some of the patients were allowed to take carriage rides and ‘attend places of public entertainment’, with half of patients charged the substantial sum of £200 a year for their care. In this year the Commissioners found that only four of the women at Otto House were ‘deemed curable’ and nine ‘deemed lunatic by inquisition’, but being an expensive private facility, none were considered to be criminals nor paupers.

Just two months before her death while still institutionalised, Emma’s sister (Mary) Sabilla Novello wrote to the asylum with instructions that allowed them to make arrangements for Emma’s funeral and burial, requesting only that the funeral be quiet and unpretentious and that no newspaper announcement be made. Sabilla had been charged with Emma’s care in their brother Alfred’s Will, which stipulated that she should be supported after his death—he predeceased both sisters in 1896. Emma Novello died at Otto House on 21 April 1902 at the age of 87 and was buried at Fulham Cemetery nearby.