Brontë (Emily) The North Wind, watercolour heightened with touches of gum arabic, after Finden's engraving of 'Ianthe' (Lady Charlotte Harley) in vol. II of the Life & Works of Lord Byron, image 160 x 113 mm (6 1/4 x 4 1/2 in), under glass, spotting and some toning to sheet, mount exposure lines visible, some surface loss and abrasion to corners, fine craquelure to gum arabic, framed, [1842]

Provenance:

Painted by Emily Brontë while at the Pensionnat Heger, Brussels, 1842;

Probably Constantin Georges Romain Héger and Mme Zoë Claire Heger;
By descent to Louise Heger (1839-1933);

Gifted by Louise Heger to Miss Marion Douglas (sister of Katie Douglas);

Marion gifted her Bronte relics to her niece, Meta Mossman;

Gifted to Mr W.R. Cunliffe;
Thence by descent to the present owners

Literature:

Weir, Edith M., New Brontë Material Comes to Light, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 11, 1949, issue 4

E.M.W., The Hegers and a Yorkshire Family. Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 14, 1963, issue 3, p. 32

Gerin, Winifred, Keats/Shelly Bulletin, 1966
Alexander, Christine and Jane Sellars, The Art of the Brontes, 1995, no. 325

Illustrated:
Gerin, Winifred, Emily Brontë: A Biography, Clarendon, 1971, illus. p. 24-25 [as by Emily Brontë]

⁂ An original drawing by Emily, undertaken while in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger, where she stayed with her sister, Charlotte, in 1842.

We know from Charlotte's letters that Emily was taking drawing lessons in Brussels, and she was almost certain to leave some of her work there. The present drawing is a rare example of an early drawing by Emily, published and recorded in Brontë literature throughout the 20th century, and with unbroken provenance.

'Unlike Charlotte and Branwell, Emily left few drafts, few exercises, to tell the story of her apprenticeship in painting. Her drawings and rough sketches are as fragmentary, and as elusive of interpretation, as her surviving poetry... Judging by surviving examples, Emily made fewer copies of engravings than her siblings.' [op. cit. The Art of the Brontës, 1995, pp.105-106]

'The painting, a water-colour, is a portrait of a girl with wind-swept hair, wearing a white dress with a blue cloak thrown rather loosely round her. The tradition of the family is that the picture is called "The North Wind". It is not clear how it earned this title... [but] It will be remembered that Anne Brontë wrote a poem called "The North Wind" and Emily one called "A Wreath of Snow", in both of which poems a captive girl welcomes the cold because it reminds her of her native northern mountains.' [op.cit. Wier, 1949]