Bibliography

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.

Primary Sources

Special Collections

Richard Cobden to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 15 July 1859
Richard Cobden to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 10 February 1860
Richard Cobden to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 13 March 1860
Richard Cobden to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, Cannes, Tuesday
Richard Cobden to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 21 March 1860
BC MS NCC/20/038

Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 21 October 1857
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 30 January 1858
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 1 January 1860
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 24 November 1863
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 8 July 1866
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 19 August 1868
Emma Aloysia Novello to (Joseph) Alfred Novello, 17 August 1870
BC MS NCC/20/297

(Joseph) Alfred Novello to Emma Aloysia Novello [Drafts] 26 July 1866
(Joseph) Alfred Novello to Emma Aloysia Novello [Drafts] 22 August 1870
BC MS NCC/20/306

Articles
‘Contributions to the £100,000 Fund’, League; the exponent of the principles of free trade, and the organ of the National anti-corn-law league, 28 October 1843, p. 75

‘Society of Female Artists (No. 7, Haymarket)’, Observer, 20 February 1859, p. 5

‘The Royal Academy’, Athenæum, 30 April 1859, p. 581

British Institution, Daily News, 17 November 1859, p. 2

The British Institution, Daily News, 21 November 1862, p. 6

Musical Times, 1 May 1869, p. 77

Morning Post, 8 June 1869, p. 5

Helen Zimmern, ‘A Visit to Mrs Cowden Clarke’, Argosy, 1884 (London: Richard Bentley & Son), p. 272

Secondary Sources

Altick, Richard D., The Cowden Clarkes (London: Oxford University Press, 1948)

Arundel Society, Classified List of Photographs, taken for the Department of Science and Art, volume 4 (London: Arundel Society, 1868)

Birkenhead, Sheila, Illustrious Friends: The Story of Joseph Severn and his Son Arthur (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965)

Casteras, Susan P., and Linda H. Peterson, A Struggle for Fame: Victorian Women Artists and Authors (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1994)

Cherry, Deborah, Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists (London: Routledge, 1993)

Cherry, Deborah, Beyond the Frame: Feminism and Visual Culture, Britain 1850–1900 (London: Routledge, 2000)

Cowden Clarke, Mary, Honey from the Weed: Verses (London: C. Kegan Paul, 1881)

Edsall, Nicholas C., Richard Cobden: Independent Radical (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1986)

Hewitt, Martin, The Dawn of the Cheap Press in Victorian Britain: The End of the “Taxes on Knowledge”, 1849–1869 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014)

Hinde, Wendy, Richard Cobden: A Victorian Outsider (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987)

Howe, Anthony, Simon Morgan and Gordon Bannerman eds., The Letters of Richard Cobden, volumes 1, 2 and 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; 2015)

Hurd, Michael, Vincent Novello and Company (London; New York: Novello & Co., 1981)

Kieve, Jeffrey L., The Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic History (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973)

Lewis, Ada Maria Leigh, Homeless in Paris: The Founding of the “Ada Leigh” Homes (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920)

Mackenzie-Grieve, Averil, Clara Novello, 1818–1908 (London: Bles, 1955)

Medici di Marignano Gigliucci, Nerina, ‘The Novellos in Genoa’, Keats-Shelley Memorial Bulletin, no. 6 (1955), 18–23

Milne-Smith, Amy, ‘Gender and Madness in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, History Compass, 20.11 (2022), 1–10

Novello, Vincent, Mary Sabilla Novello, Nerina Medici di Marignano and Rosemary

Hughes, A Mozart Pilgrimage: being the travel diaries of Vincent and Mary Novello in the year 1829 (London: Novello, 1955)

Nunn, Pamela Gerrish, Victorian Women Artists (London: Women’s Press, 1987)

Orr, Clarissa Campbell, Women in the Victorian Art World (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995)

Palmer, Fiona M., Vincent Novello (1781–1861): Music for the Masses (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

Rollins, Hyder Edward, More Letters and Poems of the Keats Circle (Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University Press, 1955)

Storey, Graham, Kathleen Tillotson and Nina Burgis eds., The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens: Volume 6: 1850–1852 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965)

Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of the First Special (Second Special—Third and Concluding) Exhibition of National Portraits, volume 3 (London: Strangeways and Walden, 1868)