The two Fanny Eatons

 

Simeon Solomon, 1859.

Fanny Eaton, née Fanny Antwistle or Entwhistle (23 June 1835, Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica – 4 March 1924, Acton), Jamaican-born artist's model and domestic worker. Her mother was of African descent, possibly born into slavery, while no father was named on her birth records, suggesting that she may have been illegitimate. She and her mother made their way to England some time in the 1840s, and by 1851 they were living in London, where she was working as a domestic servant. 

 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, circa 1863-65.

Frederick Sandys, circa 1859-60.

 "The Mother of Sisera", by Albert Joseph Moore, 1861.

In 1857 she married James Eaton, a horse-cab proprietor and driver, and together, they had ten children. She continued to work as a cleaner and cook and, from 1859 to 1867, she posed for several of the Pre-Raphaelite painters in order to supplement the family income. Her distinctive likeness is to be found in the works of Simeon Solomon, Frederick Sandys, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others. 

Walter Fryer Stocks, circa 1859.

Simeon Solomon, 1860.

By 1881 Eaton had been widowed and was working as a seamstress. In her later years, she worked as a cook on the Isle of Wight for a wine merchant and his wife. But by 1911, she was living with her daughter Julia, her son-in-law, and grandchildren in London. She died at the age of eighty-eight and was buried in Margravine Road Cemetery in Hammersmith.

Frederick Sandys, circa 1862.

Joanna Mary Wells, née Boyce, 1861.

*

Miss Frances Louise "Fanny" Eaton (1849-1936), only daughter of Henry William Eaton, later 1st Baron Cheylesmore, British businessman, Conservative politician, and important art collector. Miss - later "The Honourable" - Fanny Eaton is aged from eleven to about fifteen in these images. The photographs are the work of the studio of Camille Silvy.

19 December 1860.

1 March 1861.

1 May 1862.

5 August 1864.