Flaming June, Frederic Leighton’s masterpiece now in Puerto Rico’s Museo de Ponce, was so admired work in the late nineteenth century that half a million prints of it were sold in Christmas 1895. The model for this and for dozens more of Leighton's works was Dorothy Dene. Urban legend has it that she was the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Shaw, who knew well the artist and his model, complimented Dene for infusing passion and depth into Leighton's paintings, but as this first biography discovers, she never was “a squashed cabbage leaf,” “so deliciously low – so horribly dirty,” as Shaw portrayed his Eliza Doolittle.
Dene was born in 1859 as Ada Alice Pullan, the daughter of a bankrupt steam engineer and inventor, who fled his creditors, leaving behind a bedridden wife and nine children. To feed her siblings the nineteen-year-old Dene found work as a model in the artistic colony of Holland Park, London, where she met Frederick Lord Leighton, president of the Royal Academy. The 49 year-old bachelor became obsessed with her and helped her realized her dream of becoming an actress. Reviewers spoke of her “magnificent performances” and her “dramatic force and fire”. Her appearance on stage and on Leighton's canvas made her a celebrity.
By the summer of 1886 she was the most photographed person in England, more popular than Ellen Terry or Lillie Langtry. Victorians collected her photos and bought Dorothy Dene dolls for their daughters. They hummed songs written about her, danced the Dorothy Dene Waltz, and could put their money on a "pretty little filly" named after her. London, which buzzed with rumors of an affair, speculated about their marriage, which never took place. Coming from very different social classes, the relationship was complex for both social and psychological reasons. In Flaming Dene, authors Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren trace Dorothy’s life and speculate why Pygmalion never married his Galatea. This is also the story of the entire Dene family, five sisters of exquisite beauty, the spitting image of one another, who followed Dorothy into modeling and acting.
Photo at right: Dene and her sisters. Photograph by Downey. 1892. Click on images to enlarge them.
Bibliography
Negev, Eilat, and Yehuda Koren. Flaming Dene: a Victorian Stunner, Actress and Nude Model. London: Psychology Press News, 2019
Last modified 2 October 2019