Eaton, Fanny |
| ARTIST'S MODEL, DOMESTIC COOK (JAMAICA) |
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BORN 23 Jun 1835, Saint Andrew Parish, Surrey - DIED 4 Mar 1924, London: Acton BIRTH NAME Antwistle, Fanny Matilda CAUSE OF DEATH senile decay and syncope GRAVE LOCATION London: Margravine Cemetery (formerly Hammersmith Cemetery), Margravine Road, Hammersmith (in a corner of the cemetery; new gravestone placed in 2023) |
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Fanny Antwistle was born on Jamaica. Her father was unknown and her mother Matilda Foster may have been born in slavery. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire ten months before Fanny was born. During the 1840s she moved to London with her mother and by 1851 she lived in London. In 1857 she married the horse cab driver James Walter Easton (1838-1881). They had ten children between 1858 and 1879. After her marriage she started modelling for the Royal Academy of Arts, the Pre-Raphaelites and other painters. In 1859 Simeon Solomon made portrait sketches of her (now at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) and in 1860 John Everett Millais drew her. She was painted by both Rebecca Solomon in 1861. In the same year Joanna Wells (born Boyce) painted her, probably shortly before Wells died in childbirth. In 1865 she was one of the models for the bridesmaids in Gabriel Dante Rossetti's "The Beloved". She can also been seen in "Jephthah" (1867) by John Everett Milllais. It seems she stopped modelling after 1867, but she may have been the model for "The Slave" (1886) by William Blake Richmond. By 1881 she was a widow and she worked as a seamstress. Later in her life, in 1901, she worked as a cook for the wine metchant John Hall on the Isle of Wight. In 1911 she lived in Hammersmith. She died in 1924 in London at the age of 88. She was buried in Margravine Road Cemetery in Hammersmith. Her husband was buried in Islington & St Pancras Cemetery. Related persons • worked as a model for Millais, John • worked as a model for Rossetti, Dante Gabriel |
| Images |
 The grave of Fanny Eaton at Margravine Cemetery, London. Picture by Androom (15 Apr 2024) |
