Two of your choices triggered immediate thoughts in my head. A Face to the World: on Self-Portraits by Laura Cumming sounds good. I have just finished Self-Portraits by Ernst Rebel. I loved the images but not the obtuse text. And French Art in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Edward Morris. I would love to read it.

After reading this I found his Wikipedia article which brought up his homosexuality and even a disapproving letter from the Prince of Wales(!)regarding an association he belonged to, that was evidently notorious for its “unnatural practices.” Tuke of course was famous for his homoerotic paintings of sunlight dappled boys (not to reduce him to that solely, his, er, “All hands to the Pumps” was always a favorite of mine when I lived in London, marine light has never been so spectacularly captured).

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=14530&searchid=24069&tabview=image

I recall Gabriel Weisberg mentioning that Tuke belonged to some sort of social club for those engaged in the love that dare not speak its name. Not to be too trendy here and engage in both Victorian social history and queer studies, but they must be the same association no?

Interested to know the complete allegory.

Rory

I feel like I may have already asked you this in a previous post Mr. Christensen (if so, sorry), but have you in the course of your research heard anything about the fate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts collection of casts? I’ve been told that a lot of them were vandalised and destroyed in the chaos of ’68. If so a real loss, but it would be nice to have some scholarly verification of this old atelier rumor.