The Courtship of Winslow Homer - letters reveal relationship with Helena de Kay

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2002 by Sarah Burns

Most probably Homer painted the portrait as an elegy for his dead romance, and he crafted every detail to tell the tale of his rejection. He took particular license with her costume, for although a certain gravity was characteristic of her, she seldom fever wore black, at least as a young woman For example, one Christmas Mary Hallock sent de Kay a jacket she had made for r, remarking that there was nothing practical about it except for the colors, "your own colors, the pure and passionate white and ad which I love for your own sake." (17) On another occasion, Hallock wrote to Richard Gilder about how a statue of "Saint Helena" might be dressed two centuries hence: "In a warm dark brown with goldy lights and little gleams of pale yellow here and there or a hint of pure red." (18) But in Homer's portrait de Kay is muffled to the chin in dead black relieved only by a sliver of whit frill at the neck. She is more like a widow a bride.

The rose, as we have seen, was de Kay's special flower, yet here it lies bedraggled on the floor, a couple of petals torn away Judith Walsh is no doubt correct in interpreting this rose as the generic floral symbol of love, Homer's in this instance, cast o and left to wilt and die. (19)

The closed book she holds in the painting may also have conveyed a personal meaning for Homer. The illustration he did for Harper's Weekly in 1868 shown Figure 7 features romantic couples of kinds surrounding a modem American couple at the center. The man's handlebar moustache is much like Homer's own. At the lower right four busy cupids are grouped around a large pillow on which reposes an pen book inscribed with a "W" and an "H" on facing pages. De Kay has closed this book the book of Homer. Could there be a ore woeful wedding present than this reminder of wounded love and the road not taken?

Only one of the letters express the same sense of injury so nakedly It is dated but was probably written in late 1872 or early 1873 when Homer's feelings were still raw. There is no salutation. The body of the letter says only "Go and see your clever picture. It was painted for you to look at. Respectfully yours Winslow Homer." The ink is smeared as if he dashed off these words in haste without stopping to use a blotter. Underneath the signature are the words "to my runaway apprentice." We may never be able to determine which picture Homer meant, hut surely its message was one of anger and reproach.

By May 1873 Homer had managed to recover some equilibrium. De Kay was still friendly, inviting him to a gathering at her studio that month. But Homer kept his distance, writing back on May 20: "I must refuse your invitation for Sunday Will you pardon me? If I expect to do anything this summer I must not lose any more time and patience in New York." He announced that he was preparing to leave for Gloucester, Massachusetts, to "make another fortune... .Until then I shall be very busy. So I say goodbye, and wish you all kinds of good luck. I shall paint for your approval. Your friend, Winslow Homer."