I'm pretty sure this idea came from a silly conversation on Facebook with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood page. "The Stunners sounds like a good name for a girl band!" "Who would play what instrument?" Etcetera. The line-up in the top cartoon is: (left-to-right) Annie Miller on bass; Fanny Cornforth on drums; Lizzie Siddal on lead guitar; Jane Morris on vocals; and lastly, Georgie Burne-Jones on keyboards. We all agreed that Effie Gray would be their manager.
As it turns out, there actually is a girl band called The Stunners. So I added the umlaut over the "u" to make them more metal. (As David St. Hubbins says in This is Spinal Tap: "It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you.") Georgie Burne-Jones actually did play the piano and sing very well--her husband did many drawings of her at her keyboard.
Anyway, the band of course needed groupies.
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| William Homan Hunt finds it hard to resist a good groove. |
"Who would be the one to rush the stage?" "You know it would be William Holman Hunt."
Hunt (who I've sadly neglected in cartoons as of late... not for long though...) was notoriously religious but was also nicknamed "Mad" or "Maniac" for activities such as creeping around at night with a lantern to paint nightscenes, boiling a dead horse or stranding a goat in the Dead Sea to depict this psychedelic image:
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| Poor goat... |
Burne-Jones had a penchant for fainting when he became over-excited. Fred Stephens (with his new moustache) is shouting "Look!" The man holding the stuffed wombat and later saying "Oy vey" is Simeon Solomon.
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| Simeon Solomon is embarrassed on behalf of the PRB for Hunt's dancing skills. |
Coming up next: Rossetti cuts off his hair for a good cause!
