Winthrop’s Adventure

Abstract

I All the intimates at the villa S —— knew Julian Winthrop* to be an odd sort of creature, but I am sure no one ever expected from him such an eccentric scene as that which took place on the first Wednesday of last...

Voicing the Queer Self: Listening to Portraits with Vernon Lee

“…87 Farinelli reappears transformed in the portrait of the fictional opera singer Ferdinando Rinaldi, described by Lee in 'A Culture Ghost: Winthrop's Adventure' (1881), originally published in Fraser's Magazine in January 1881, only six months before sitting for Sargent who was really pleased with how she turned their 'cold shivers under the Arcades of Bologna' into a story. 88 The novella revolves around Julian Winthrop, an American painter, like Sargent, who is bewitched by the picture he has seen in the villa of a music lover and collector while travelling in Lombardy.…”

“…Unlike the actual portrait of Farinelli in Bologna, the fictional one sings, though their posture and gestures may be comparable: 'blue-veined hand, strangely out of keeping, with the brown, irregular face -he held an open roll of notes'. 89 A few years later, Lee rewrites the same leitmotiv into 'A Wicked Voice' (1887), which originally appeared in Les Lettres et les Arts illustrated by Albert Lynch. 90 In this new version, the main character Magnus is no longer a painter, but a Norwegian composer and follower of Wagner who, during a stay in Venice, falls under the spell of a portrait immortalizing Zaffirino, a long-deceased eighteenth-century opera singer.…”