Wing's First Blog Post

Above is a cartoon that I found when I was searching for Pre- Raphaelite images. I did not know until last week that wombats were one of the most appreciated animal among the Pre-Raphaelites until Professor Marshall mentioned it. As a result of my curiosity as to their fascination towards the wombats, I decided to conduct further research. Wombats are originally from Australia and were introduced to Europe in 1857. However, these newcomers were not used to Europe and therefore became very challenging for their keepers. Wombats’ need to be carefully taken care of and their foreign origin can be seen as major reasons for “wombat mania” (Simons). With Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s fascination towards previously unknown, strange animals, wombats soon became popular among the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood members. As their appreciation for wombats increased, they included wombats in many of their works, including the illustration for “The Goblin Market” by Rossetti (as shown below) and some of Edward Burne-Jones’ sketches.

 Artists were not the only ones who found an adoration for wombats, as writers and poets additionally made wombats the subject of their works, which contributed to the increased popularity of the wombat.  The obsession with wombats was so strong that even wombats’ “cubic faces” and their fertility features were highly discussed and considered by members of the public.  In order to evolve in the way that they did, wombats must have been very talented and have had great capacity to make changes in order to adapt to their environment. Rossetti even named his wombat “Top,” after William Morris who was called “Topsy.”  I think it would be entertaining to see how Morris would respond to all of the artworks and poems talking about wombats, but with his name on them. So far, I haven’t found any text suggesting that Morris kept a wombat. It might also be fun to think about this: did Morris ever think about having a wombat of his own and possibly name it after Rossetti?

John Simons, Rossetti’s Wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian Animals in Victorian London, Middlesex University Press, 2008. 152 http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/18.4/18.4.Reviews.Pinkney.pdf