Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Described by some as a quote charming rogue. Charles Augustus Howell was a dodgy figure in Victorian London's art circles. There was deception, there was extortion, there was forgery, and just a whole lot of unsavory bits. Howell was an art dealer by trade who was also known to manipulate those around him so he could acquire works that would establish and increase his reputation and his financial security. When that didn't work. In the words of biographer Humphrey Hare, quote,
Howell did not hesitate to blackmail. So let's get to know this charming yet unsavory character. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Trumurky and I'm Holly Frye. Howell was a flamboyant fellow who charmed his way into the pre Raphaelite art movement. The pre Raphaelites were a secret society, a brotherhood is what they called themselves, of seven young artists who were
disenchanted with the contemporary painting scene in London at the time. Instead, these artists were inspired by Italian art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and they emulated the art of late Medieval and early Renaissance Europe through the time when Italian High Renaissance painter Rafaelo Sanzio da Urbino, known as raphael became popular, hence the name pre Raphaelites. Their intent was to create a new British art movement, and although short lived,
they did this new movement. Their Brotherhood is characterized by vivid detail and bright luminous colors, tight brushstrokes, and a focus on small details. When it came to subject matter, Naturalism was key. Was formed in London in eighteen forty
eight by three Royal Academy of Arts students. These principal members were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a poet as well as a painter, painter William Holman Hunt and painter John Everett Malay, painter James Collinson, art critic Frederick George Stevens, sculptor Thomas Woolmer, and writer William Michael Rossetti, who was Dante's brother, were also invited to join. All were under
the age of twenty five. Two additional painters, William Dyce and Ford Maddox Brown were also associated with the movement more as mentors really and also came to paint in the pre Raphaelite style.
There were critics, of course, and among them was famous novelist Charles Dickens. These critics denounced the pre Raphaelites for their disregard for the then academic ideal of beauty, but also for what they considered an irreverence toward religious themes. Not everyone felt that way, though, One leading art critics, the polymath John Ruskin, defended their art, and primarily because of Ruskin's support, the artists did not lack for patrons.
Five years after it started, the Brotherhood disbanded. John Malay, who began as a child prodigy and was considered the most technically gifted painter of the society, went on to become an academic success. Of the original seven members, only Hunt continued to pursue the style throughout most of his career, and he remained true to the pre Raphaelite principles. The style lived on through the eighteen fifties and eighteen sixties, famously with painters Edward Burne, Jones and William Morris.
Howell was not himself an artist. He was an agent and probably also a fixer. He was born in a Porto, Portugal. Probably his father was an Englishman and his mother was Portuguese. In fact, Howell claimed to have aristocratic Portuguese ancestry, and he was known to where the red sash of the Portuguese Order of Christ, of which he would be happy to tell you was an inherited family order. He was
very concerned about status. The Howells moved to Britain when Charles was young, and in some stories of his life it's reported that throughout his adulthood he would sometimes make up news stories about where he came from.
In London, Howell officially and firmly entered the pre Raphaelite circle when Ruskin employed him as his private secretary, a position that trusted him with quote affairs needing delicate handling at a wise discretion. As we get further into the life of Charles Howell, though discretion may not be the appropriate word to associate with him, but let's keep on going. Though Howell increasingly argued for control over all of Ruskin's finances,
His work usually had him managing Ruskin's charitable donations. He quickly became a close friend and an agent to a succession of leading artists, including Dante, Gabriel Rossetti, Frederick Sands, edwardburn Jones, George Frederick Watts, and American born artist James McNeil Whistler. Whistler, who is considered the first contemporary artist, was a significant figure in the Esthetic movement, a late nineteenth century art movement that emphasized the idea of art
for art's sake. Whistler and Howell ran in similar circles. Some consider Howell to have been his unofficial agent. Whistler called Howell quote the creature of top boots and plumes, splendidly flamboyant.
So far, it seems like Charles Augustus Howell wasn't such a bad guy. But we need to pause here for a break and a word from our sponsors, and when we return we will talk about how he became known as a blackmailer and why his friends and business partners all considered him a liar.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's start talking about why people used words like skilled, amusing, and unscrupulous to describe Howell.
At first, it seems there were a lot of good things to say about this guy. He could get you work, and he could sell it, he could manage money, he could apparently tell a good story, and he was a
snappy dresser, so what's not to like. William Michael Rossetti once commented on Howell's sharp sense of business and knowledge of the artist world, stating he had quote quick and accurate discernment of the merits of works of art and decoration of many various kinds, along with extensive practical knowledge
of their market value. He continued that Howell was a quote speculator and dealer in the works of many kinds, and a skillful salesman with his open manner, his winning address, with his exhaustless gift of amusing talk, not innocent of high coloring and actual blague, Howell was unsurpassable, and it's
true he had secured many commissions for many artists. But there were cracks in Howell's character, and William also noted that Howell had quote the ability to exploit people's hobbies and weaknesses.
Painter Ford Maddox Brown described him similarly as quote second to no One in England and his intimate knowledge of ancient and oriental furniture, china tapestries, but he also called him quote one of the biggest liars in existence.
Eventually, Edward Burne Jones convinced Ruskin to sever his connections with Howell. The pre Raphaelite circle began to find him less and less charming and more to faced and corrupt. He could get things done for you, but he could also get things done against you.
There are many stories of unethical, dishonest, and shameless things Howell did, but we chose this one because it just may be tops. As a master manipulator. Howell once convinced Dante Rosetti to exhume the body of his wife, Elizabeth Lizzie Siddle, to retrieve a book of poems he had buried with her, because Howell, as Rosetti's agent, thought he could make some money from them. Lizzie Siddle was an artist and a model, and she was both Rosetti's wife
and his muse. She modeled for several artists in the pre Raphaelite brotherhood, and she became one of the most famous faces in Victorian England when she died of a laudanum overdose just two years into their marriage in eighteen sixty two. Rossetti placed in her coffin a journal containing the only copies of many of his poems. Seven years after her death, Howell somehow convinced Rossetti to dig up the grave and retrieve that a.
Rosetti at this time in his life was broke and he was struggling with both grief and with alcohol misuse, a problem that he had developed after Lizzie's death. These were facts that Howell knew and that he took advantage of for his own financial gain. This was not to help a friend in need. At Howell's insistence and persistence, Rosetti got permission from Home Secretary Henry A. Bruce to have the coffin exhumed and to remove the book from inside.
That event took place on October fifth, eighteen sixty nine, and it was done at night, so as to avoid causing any offense and to avoid causing anyone to think they were illegal body snatchers. Rosetti did not attend. London Solicitor Henry Virtue Tebbs accompanied Howell at the grave site, acting in illegal capacity as witness to the items taken from the coffin. Doctor Llewellen Williams also attended. His role
was disinfecting the book. According to Howell's version of the event, after seven years, Lizzie had remained perfectly preserved, and he described her coffin to be full of her flowing hair. Howell and Rosetti did get the journal, and once the poems were transcribed, Rossetti had the original manuscript destroyed. The poems, though, hit the wrong notes with critics. On top of poor reviews and poor sales. Rosetti had said never got over the night his wife's body was disinterred.
Admission of what they did that night in October of eighteen sixty nine did not become public until after Dante's death in eighteen eighty two. British writer Sir Thomas Henry Halkan, commonly known as Halcane, later recalled that his friend Dante regretted going through with the disinterment, citing this quote weakness of yielding to the importunity of friends and the impulse of literary ambition of Howell. Halcane had little good to say, and referred to him as a quote soldier of fortune.
There's no clear evidence that Howell blackmail Dante Gabrielle Rossetti into digging up the book, but historians tend to err on the side of yes he used blackmail, as Howell had a reputation of using that tactic wherever and whenever he could to get whatever he wanted. However, it is also plausible that Howell skipped the blackmail and simply took
advantage of a suffering man. After the exhumation of Lizzie Siddall's grave, Dante's brother William Rosetti insisted that the entire incident be kept quiet.
We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. When we're back, we will talk about forgery, more blackmail, and where Howell's character lives on today.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about Howell's involvement with forgery and how he exploited the pre Raphaelite artists.
Charles Augustus Howell's tendency for manipulation in blackmail often ended his relationships, as any of us may imagine, but there was a charm factor at play. Even after he'd pressured Dante Rossetti to exhume Lizzie's coffin, his relationship with Rosetti didn't end. That usually didn't happen until after he persuaded his lover Rosa Cord to create forgeries of Rosetti's art.
Rosa Francis Cord was Howell's mistress. He had a wife, and she wasn't it. Corter studied art, and for a time she had a studio at Newmarket where she painted racehorses and also portraits. Because of Howell's influence and insistence, she began to make copies of the eighteenth century portraits and erotic drawings of Henryfuse. Her name then became associated with forgeries of Rosetti's works, as well as works by
John Malay. In her set of four drawings called the Story of Saint George Slaying the Dragon, which is based on stained glass windows by Dante Gabrielle Rosetti, the head of Saint George is said to have been modeled on Charles Augustus Howell behind the scenes of that particular work
of art. In a letter dated March twenty second, eighteen seventy six, Dante wrote to Howell stating, quote, you borrowed a set of drawings of Saint George and the Dragon to copy for your own use only, please return them at once. Howell clearly didn't respect that whole for your own use part and Corter's forgery of Saint George Slaying the Dragon was later presented to the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery by an anonymous donor through the National Art
Collection's Fund in nineteen oh five. Corter's originals remain there today.
For a time, Howell's wit and charm secured him a favored spot in several artists' lives, despite the awareness of his lies and manipulation in their tight circle. For instance, years after Dante Rosetti became convinced that Howell was profiting off of selling forgeries of his art, he still allegedly was endeared to how entertaining of a person Howell could be.
Howell didn't do much to hide his true nature, though in addition to selling quarters forgeries, he very likely embezzled funds from Ruskin, and he made shady side deals while acting as agent for both Dante Rosetti and Edward Burne Jones. Burne Jones scathingly described Howell as quote a base, treacherous, unscrupulous,
and malignant fellow. Years later, Edward's wife, Georgiana burn Jones described him as someone who had quote come against us in friend's clothing, but inwardly he was a stra to all that our life meant.
Howell also worked as an agent to those who were not in the pre Raphaelite circle, such as with Whistler. He became a business advisor and personal secretary to English poet and critic Algernon Swinburne, an arrangement described as quote not only his man of business, but also the partner
of his amusements and the recipient of his confidences. But after some of Swinburne's letters passed through Howell to a publisher named George Redway without Swinburne's permission, Swinburne was of course outraged, and he demanded the return of those letters. Many versions of this story suggest the letters contained quote indecent content of some sort, but regardless, he then faced blackmail from Redway. He was expected to give up the copyright of the manuscript a word for the Navy or
the Saucy Letters would be published. Swinburne gave in, and he blame Howell for the whole sordid affair. After Howell's death, Swinburne wrote that he hoped Howell was quote in that particular circle of malbouge, where the coding of eternal excrement makes it impossible to see whether the damn dog's head is or is not tonsured. It's safe to say that Swinburne was not going to eulogize him.
Though Howells considered to have been a well known blackmailer. We would be remiss if we didn't mention how Biographer Helen Rosetti Angelie has added to his legend that she has found actually nothing to support those accusations. Angelie, the daughter of William Michael Rosetti, doesn't defend Howell, but suggests that specific idea perhaps rose from extrapolations and assumptions related to the blackmail incident involving Swinburne and Redway, but not
from Howell himself. What we know from the artists he worked with is that it's certain he couldn't be trusted.
Like his birth, Howell's death at age five fifty is equally shadowy. Some reports suggest he probably died of tuberculosis, but in the more colorful and popular versions of the story of his death, it's reported that he was found murdered outside of Chelsea Public House, with his throat slit, and in some cases it's said that a coin was placed between his teeth, perhaps in a nod to the custom in Greek mythology paying the ferryman who carried the dead across the River Styx in the underworld.
In the art world, Howell lives on as a two faced and morally bankrupt character, and such is also true in the literary world. Howell was the inspiration for British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's antagonist in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, published in nineteen
oh four. Doyle, a contemporary of Howell, writes the character of Charles Augustus Milverton as quote, the king of Blackmailers, and critics point out that Milverton inspires in Sherlock Holmes a revulsion that's far greater than any of the murderers he encounters in his albeit fictional career. While Swinburne once described the real Howel as quote the violist wretch I ever came across, the fictional Holmes described the fictional Milverton
as the worst man in London. Do you want to talk a little bit about coercion and coercion concoction?
I Do you want to talk about coercion concoctions. When I was first looking at your notes on this, one particular alcohol immediately jumped to my mind in thinking about Howell, and that was Furnet Bronca. Now, just in case our listeners don't know about furnet bronca, it is a very bitter Italian liqueur. It's usually classify it as in amorrow.
Some people would argue that it's actually its own subcategory, but there's a whole funny side of it where it's also nicknamed the bartender's handshake because bartenders like to do shots of it. It is not delicious to everyone's palate. I'll put it back.
I don't think we have used it before.
We have none. Because it is not delicious to everyone's palat people often describe it as something reminiscent of like a Jaegermeister, but without the sweetness. It's got some bite. So I thought we would put that in a drink and see if we could make it delightful in its own way. I will say this is a drink that not everyone's gonna love, not only because it has fer net bronca, but because it is almost all alcohol. It's a heavy hitter. Sure, so even if you do love it, maybe just drink one.
Yeah.
The inspiration for this, and the name of the drink is Buried Poems because I wanted some thing that had a very unique and bold flavor. Because you have to be bold as hell to suggest to your friend that they should dig up their deceased beloved because you want something that's in the coffin.
That's just brazing, that's crazy, I know.
So I wanted a very bold flavor. So here we go. Buried Poems is go ahead and pre chill that martini or cocktail glass. You want it cold, go ahead and put in the fridge. You want an ounce and a half of pomegranate liqueur, an ounce and a half of vodka. Now, when we get to for net Bronca, this is poorer's choice because these sound like minute amounts, but I'm telling
you they have a strong impact on it. If you have never had it before and you're not sure that you're going to be into it, just put in like an eighth of an ounce, and if you're feeling a little more brazen, go ahead and go up to a quarter of an ounce. That's literally how little we're doing here. And then I also added a quarter ounce of vanilla syrup. Shake this until it is so cold with ice. This is one of those spirits that like, the colder it is,
the better it is. Right, if you were to drink warm for a net, you would be like, this is scorable. I again, I cautioned be very judicious with your use of it because it can start to taste like pomegranate cough syrup and you don't want that. But you're just gonna shake this, shake it, strain it into your pre
chilled glass. It's a really interesting sip, right, It does have that like herbal medicinal note to it, but I actually found like the pomegranate tempered that quite a bit and made it something interesting to my palette.
Anyway, does the pomegranate make this drink red like his sash?
It's pinkish. It's not enough to make it red, but yeah, pinkish, pinkish. It also depends on the pomegranate liqueur you get. Somemmer are redder than others. Now, if you want to do the mocktail, we're gonna do some stuff a little bit different because you just kind of have to.
Yeah, this is a very strong drink.
It's all alcohol, right. What you're gonna do for the mocktail is you're gonna do two and a half ounces of pomegranate juice and one ounce of licorice tea. And then I hope in your case you are not the person who absolutely won't drink bitters because they have minute amounts of alcohol in them, but because you need a couple of dashes of angster of bitters here because it it gives it that kind of edginess that the furnette would have. It's not the same, nothing is quite. You
cannot replicate what fernet does in my opinion. But so just two dashes of bitters, so it's super easy. Two and a half ounces of pomegranate juice, one ounce of licorice tea, two dashes of bitters, and then a quarter ounce of vanilla syrup. And the reason we bump down the syrup is because we're working with a juice, so that's already sweet. Same thing, shaken up, pour it into a pre chilled glass. Delicious in a different way, probably
more delic just to most palettes them the cocktail. But the cocktail is really fun, and I think pretty.
Yummy should be tried. Got to try it.
Yeah, you gotta try it. Listen. That's how you discover your favorite things.
Right.
You may not know what your favorite cocktail is yet because you haven't sipped it. You got to go out and try all the weird stuff because one of them could be magical for you, and it might be for net maybe somebody. I love it. I am not a person who wants to do a shot of furnet, but some people truly love it. But I do love a shot of Yeager, So your mileage may vary. Right. That is the Buried Poems, which kind of breaks my heart. I feel like Rosetti is the one who just got
hung out to dry emotionally and all of this. What a guy, Howl, You're not cool man. We hope that you have had a cool time hanging out with us today and hearing about Howl's absolutely horrifying behavior, and that you will come back and visit us again, because next week we're going to be right back here with more blackmail and another cocktail. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.