Abstract
Symbolist craftswoman Mary Seton Watts (née Fraser Tytler) (1849–1938)
and ‘England’s Michelangelo’ (Blunt 1989) George Frederic Watts read
John Ruskin’s works in their reading alcove, known as the ‘niche’, that
Mary designed for the sitting room at their Surrey studio-home.
The couple named this abode ‘Limnerslease’: ‘limner’ being Latin for
‘artist’ and ‘leasen’ being the Old English word meaning ‘to glean’, in the
hope that golden years of creativity would be gleaned there. Ruskin’s
writings were often comforting or thought-provoking bedtime reads for the
couple. They were enchanted by his concept of nature’s divine powers in
his work The Queen of the Air (1869), which Mary gave to her husband for
his 74th birthday. The Wattses held Ruskin in an almost religious
reverence among the ‘great preachers’, championing his ‘great gospel’ and
‘beautifully holy mind’.1 George Watts told Mary (as he stepped into his
bath) that he thought ‘Ruskin had perhaps the most original mind of all
the great men of his day’. The many references to Ruskin’s works in
Mary’s diaries—the majority of which remain unpublished—reflect his
deep influence on the couple’s thinking as a leading art critic of their day.
They also illuminate the private sacred conversations that took place not
only between artists but also between husband and wife.