Mrs. James Leathart

By the winter of 1862 some of the most committed buyers of the new Pre-Raphaelite painting were not in London but in the industrial north. James Leathart, a lead manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne, was one of them, and he wanted Rossetti to paint his young wife, Maria. Rossetti, who rarely left London and rarely kept a promise on time, actually made the journey north that December and worked on the portrait in the family's house on Framlington Place. Maria was 22, some 20 years younger than her husband, and the daughter of a Newcastle soap and candle maker. Rossetti signed and dated the finished picture 'Newcastle, Xmas 1862' in the corner, and it was hanging in the Leathart home within a few weeks.