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Photo: Portrait of Frederick Sandys by his father, Anthony Sands, 1848
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (born Antonio Frederic Augustus Sands) (Norwich 1 May 1829 – 25 June 1904 London), but usually known as Frederick Sandys, was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, illustrator and draughtsman, of the Victorian era.
....He married Georgiana Creed, but this marriage only lasted 3 years, although they never divorced. He had a long affair with the Romany woman Keomi Gray, who sat as a model both for him and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and perhaps also for Simeon Solomon. He and Gray had two daughters and two sons.
In 1862 Sandys met actress Mary Emma Jones, known as Miss Clive, when she modeled for The Magdalen, now owned by the Norwich Castle Museum. A relationship developed between the two, he became devoted to her, taking her as his common-law wife for the rest of his life. She gave birth to a large number of children, 10 of whom were raised under the name of Neville and survived after Sandys' death. His work Proud Maisie made in 1867, was inspired by Mary, so much so that he made at least 11 versions by 1904. He influenced his younger sister Emma Sandys (1843–1877), whose works were mainly portraits of children and of young women, often in period or medieval clothing.
He died in Kensington in west London in 1904.
....Early in the 1860s he began to exhibit the paintings which set the seal upon his fame. The best known of these are Vivien (1863), Morgan le Fay (1864), Cassandra and Medea (1868).
Sandys never became a popular painter. He painted little, and the dominant influence upon his art was the influence exercised by lofty conceptions of tragic power. There was in it a sombre intensity and an almost stern beauty which lifted it far above the ideals of the crowd. The Scandinavian Sagas and Le Morte d'Arthur gave him subjects after his own heart. The Valkyrie and Morgan le Fay represent his work at its very best. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Sandys) undefined