Sonnets from the Portuguese
Text by Phoebe Traquair based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems
One of the National Library of Scotland's rarest treasures is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, a manuscript illustrated by Phoebe Anna Traquair.
This is no ordinary book of sonnets. In 1850 Phoebe Anna Traquair, a leading artist within the Scottish Arts and Crafts Movement, recreated Browning's sonnets in a gothic-style text accompanied by exquisitely colourful and intricate illustrations.
Traquair was active in a variety of disciplines including embroidery, enamelwork, leather book-cover tooling as well as mural decoration and manuscript illustration.
Her work was heavily influenced by artists such as William Blake and the romanticism of the Pre-Raphaelites as well as medieval imagery and Celtic mythology. Traquair decorated manuscripts for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Garth Wilkinson and Alfred Lord Tennyson but Sonnets from the Portuguese is regarded as one of her finest works. The manuscript was commissioned by Phoebe's brother William Richardson Moss.
About the Manuscript
Traquair used coloured inks, watercolours and gold leaf, creating a lavishly decorated vellum folio for each individual sonnet. The completed manuscript was bound in green calf to a design by Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, bookbinder and printer (1840–1922).
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
No two folios are alike and each one is an experiment with style and colour and the influence of 14th-century Italian manuscripts is clearly visible. For example Sonnet No. 1, I thought once how Theocritus had sung, starts with a large illuminated capital 'I' painted with brilliant colours. This is a typical device to stress the importance of the first word of the sonnet. The capital is inhabited by two characters, a winged angel and an instrumentalist.
This initial was placed on the page first with the text of the sonnet being added afterwards. Important passages, together with the initial letter of each line are drawn in red ink. The sonnet is placed within a frame containing a floral motif and grotesques. These are sometimes weird and exotic characters that can be animal or human or a concoction of both. On this page the frame is placed down the left-hand side of the page drawing the viewer's eye to the drawing at its foot.
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly
For Sonnet 5, I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, Traquair uses a completely different style. She starts the text with a capital 'I'. The initial is encased in a square box and incorporates an outdoor scene. Traquair uses blue and red inks to stress the important words and phrases in the text.
The frame encompasses the entire page. On the left side it is light and airy; a single stalk with flowers and leaves. On the right-hand side the frame is more intricately drawn with numerous entwined stalks and leaves creeping across the page.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
Sonnet 43 is very different to Sonnet Nos. 1 and 5. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways has an intricate, almost overpowering border containing several lavishly decorated boxes occupied by grotesques. As usual Traquair uses red ink to mark the initial letter of a new line in the sonnet. On this folio these letters are spaced diagonally down the page so that what would otherwise be a solid mass of black text is broken by a diagonal line of red letters. At the foot of the page the lovers are watched over by an angel. Sonnet 43 has been analysed in detail by Linda Sue Grimes of Suite101.
Every Folio is a Work of Art
Every folio in this manuscript is a work of art in its own right and deserves further attention. Folio 26, I live with visions for my company, includes mini-portraits of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning and Sonnet 34, With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee shows Traquair's painting skills together with all the medieval elements that she liked so much.
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