Emma Sandys

Emma Sandys
Born
Mary Ann Emma Sands

(1841-09-25)25 September 1841
Norwich, England,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died21 November 1877(1877-11-21) (aged 36)
Norwich, England,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Known forPainting
MovementPre-Raphaelites
RelativesFrederick Sandys (brother)
Mary Emma Jones by Emma Sandys, 1874
Fiammetta by Emma Sandys, 1876

Emma Sandys (born Mary Ann Emma Sands) (25 September 1841 – 21 November 1877) was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter. Like many female artists of her era, Sandys’ contributions to art history were largely overlooked until the late 20th century, when her paintings were re-examined by feminist art scholars.

Biography

Emma Sandys was born in Norwich, where her father, Anthony Sands (1806–1883), gave her some early art lessons. In 1853 the family added a 'y' to their surname. She was influenced by her brother Frederick Sandys (1829–1904), one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Sandys did not start painting until adulthood, her earliest painting is dated to 1863. Records show that she exhibited her work in both London and Norwich between 1867 and 1874. Emma Sandys debuted at the Norwich and Eastern Counties Working Classes Industrial Exhibition in 1867 with her oil painting “Preparing for the Ball”. This painting was later included in the 1997-98 exhibition Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists in Manchester before eventually being sold at auction in 2003. This exhibition was designed by Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn to showcase the overlooked contributions of women artists in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Emma Sandys’ artwork has frequently been falsely attributed to her elder brother Frederick Sandys, which has made it hard for art historians to properly credit her work. Her works were mainly portraits in both oil and chalk of children and of young women, often in period clothing, against backgrounds of brightly coloured flowers. Sandys created most of her work around Norwich, but may have spent time in the studio of her brother, Frederick Sandys, in London. She died from congestion of the lungs in Norwich on November 21st, 1877.

Portrait of Emma Sandys, painted by her brother Frederick in 1855.

Her works include:

References

  1. ↑ Christopher Wright; Catherine May Gordon; Mary Peskett Smith (2006). British and Irish paintings in public collections: an index of British and Irish oil paintings by artists born before 1870 in public and institutional collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Yale University Press. p. 702. ISBN 9780300117301. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Yeldham, Charlotte (2004). Pre-Raphaelite women artists (act. 1848-1870s), female contemporaries of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (available online from 2011).
  3. ↑ "Emma Sandys (1843-1877), Preparing for the Ball". Christie's. 10/16/2026. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ↑ Spalding, Frances (1998). "Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists. Birmingham & Southampton". The Burlington Magazine. 140 (1140). The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.: 217–218. ISSN 0007-6287. JSTOR 887847.
  5. ↑ Leighton House Museum (2014). A Victorian obsession: the Pérez Simon collection at Leighton House Museum, 14 November 2014 – 29 March 2015. Exhibition guide. 75p. London, Leighton House Museum.
  6. ↑ "Victorian Web". Portrait of a Girl by Emma Sandys. Victorian Web. Retrieved 15 June 2011.