Ludlow, Frances Sarah |
| PAINTER'S MODEL (ENGLAND) |
|
BORN 15 Feb 1829, Iffley, Oxfordshire: Hockmore Street - DIED 6 Jul 1879, Oxford, Oxfordshire: 43 Observatory Street, Headington GRAVE LOCATION Oxford, Oxfordshire: St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Walton Street (St Paul section, Row 13, Grave B23 1/2 [St Paul ref T10]) |
|
Sarah Ludlow was the daughter of the agricultural laborer James Ludlow and his wife Mary Ann, born Bleay. Frances worked as a housekeeper for Thomas Combe from Oxford University Press. When the painter Charles Collins was staying with Combe he spotted her. She was the model for the head of the nun in "Convent Thoughts" that he painted in 1850/1851. Millais saw her when he visited Collins and asked her to pose for him as well, but she left London the next Saturday. After the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1851 it was bought by Combe, who bequeathed it to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. She still worked for Combe at the time she married the carpenter William Bruckner on 27 November 1856 at St Paul's Church. They had at least six children. She died in Oxford in 1879. Her husband died in 1888 and was buried beside her at St Sepulchre's Cemetery in Oxford. In later years it was questioned if Frances was the model for "Convent Thoughts" and it was suggested that a woman named Sarah Hackett (b.1832) might have been the model. There is no surviving photograph of the young Sarah Hackett, but a picture taken at a later age does not rule out that she may have been the model. Related persons • worked as a model for Collins, Charles Allston |
| Images |
 The grave of Frances Sarah Ludlow at St Sepulchre's Cemetery in Oxford, Oxfordshire. Picture by Androom (09 Nov 2025) |
Sources • Convent Thoughts by Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873) • William & Frances Brucker: St Sepulchre's Cemetery, Oxford |
