Introduction

THE year began with an invitation to both George and the Wellses to take tea with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his wife. ‘No sort of party,’ he wrote. ‘Don't tog, for I shall be in my painting coat.’ It was almost immediately rescinded because of Elizabeth Rossetti's ill-health, and a further invitation, for 22 January, was also cancelled. In his letter Rossetti expresses their ‘vexation’ at being prevented from seeing their friends, and his particular disappointment at not seeing what he calls Joanna's ‘faggot picture’ – The Heather-Gatherer.

The Rossettis notwithstanding, George was heavily committed socially. It was at lunch with Ruskin on 10 January, where the ‘principal topics of discussion’ were ‘spirit rapping, immortality of the soul, Spurgeon, modern Christianity, ridicule, joking, its rise, harmfulness’, that he first met the Simons. John Simon, who was Medical Officer of Health for the City of London, believed Ruskin to be ‘the great prophet of the imagination’, and he had expressed interest in both George's and Rossetti's pictures. This meeting was a great success and led to dinner on the 19th at which Daniel Douglas Hume, the leading Spiritualist medium of the day, was also present. He had arrived in London in 1855 and gained a substantial following: Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of his disciples and he was almost certainly the model for Robert Browning's satire, Mr Sludge the Medium.

Evidence for the daily lives of Joanna, George and Henry during the first half of the year comes largely from George's diary. On 15 January he records dining with the Wellses at Phillimore Gardens. The Rossettis were expected but didn't come, but Clayton was present, and it was on this occasion, according to Alice, that Henry had the idea for his portrait group, Conversation Piece.Alice writes: