INTRODUCTION lxxvii

bedroom at Brantwood, in which Ruskin died. The drawings shown on the walls can be identified. No. 1 (beginning at the left-hand corner) is the drawing of Conway Castle by Ruskin’s father, referred to in the text (p. 38, the foreground alone is discernible in the woodcut); below it, Grapes and Peaches by William Hunt. The other drawings are all by Turner. Below the Hunt, “Vesuvius in Action”; then “Carnarvon Castle,” and “The Shores of Wharfe”; next, one of the Bible illustrations, and “Vesuvius in Repose.” Then “Devonport” and (below it) “constance” Next “Gosport” and (below it)”The St. Gotthard”; and finally “Coblentz” and “Salisbury.”

The portrait of Ruskin’s Father in Early Manhood (Plate I.) is from the picture by Raeburn at Brantwood; those of his Father and Mother after marriage (Plate VII.) are from the pictures by Northcote, also at Brantwood. Ruskin, it seems,¹ used to see some resemblance in this portrait of his father to Reynolds’s “Banished Lord.” The Plate of his “Two Aunts” (VI.) is engraved from miniatures; the Croydon aunt is on the left, the Scottish aunt on the right. The two portraits of Ruskin in childhood (Plates II. and III.) are from the pictures by Northcote, described in the text (pp. 21, 22).

Of the pictures of Ruskin’s homes, the first (Plate IV.) is a wood-engraving showing the front of the house at Herne Hill (No. 28), and the second (V.) a wood-engraving, after Mr. Arthur Severn’s drawing, showing the back and the garden. Ruskin’s father bought a long lease of the house in 1823; he moved out of it in 1843. In 1871 Ruskin gave the remainder of the lease to Mrs. Arthur Severn, on her marriage; the lease expired in 1886, when Mr. Arthur Severn renewed it until 1907. The house was thus connected with two periods of Ruskin’s life: (1) his early years from 1823 to 1843; and (2) the years from 1872 (when he left Denmark Hill) to 1888 (the year of his last sojourn in London). For, during Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn’s tenancy, a room was always reserved for him in his old home; and the Preface to Præterita was written there (pp. 11-12).

The house at Denmark Hill (No. 198), shown in the two views on Plate XXVII. (p. 380), was Ruskin’s home (with some few absences) from 1843 to 1872, when after his mother’s death he sold the remainder of the lease. This, therefore, is the house associated with Modern Painters and with all Ruskin’s work up to his Oxford period. The house adjoined the residence of Sir Henry Bessemer, the inventor; and still remains, with its gardens, much as it was in Ruskin’s time, though the views from the back are very different, owing to suburban

¹ Vol. XXXIV. p. 668.

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