Rose La Touche
Rose La Touche (1848–1875) was the pupil, cherished student, "pet", and ideal on whom the English art historian John Ruskin based Sesame and Lilies (1865).
Rose's mother, Maria La Touche, had written to Ruskin for assistance with her children's education after a formal introduction from her friend Louisa, Lady Waterford.
Ruskin recalls the correspondence in Praeterita: Soon after I returned home, in the eventful year 1858, a lady wrote to me from—somewhere near Green Street, W.,—saying, as people sometimes did, in those days, that she saw I was the only sound teacher in Art; but this farther, very seriously, that she wanted her children—two girls and a boy—taught the beginnings of Art rightly; especially the younger girl, in whom she thought I might find some power worth developing.
[5] Upon first meeting Rose, Ruskin wrote in the final pages of Praeterita that presently the drawing room door opened, and Rosie came in, quietly taking stock of me with her blue eyes as she walked across the room; gave me her hand, as a good dog gives its paw, and then stood a little back.
Nine years old, on 3 January 1858, thus now rising towards ten; neither tall nor short for her age; a little stiff in her way of standing.
Lips perfectly lovely in profile;--a little too wide, and hard in edge, seen in front; the rest of the features what a fair, well-bred Irish girl's usually are; the hair, perhaps, more graceful in short curl around the forehead, and softer than one sees often, in the close-bound tresses above the neck.
Ruskin's interest in Rose grew into fascination and adoration for his pupil and their interaction consisted of extraordinary amounts of correspondence.
Various authors describe the death as arising from either madness, anorexia, a broken heart, religious mania or hysteria, or a combination of these.
He convinced himself that the Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio had included portraits of Rose in his paintings of the life of Saint Ursula.
Rose and Ruskin's romance is alluded to in his small tract on education and culture, Sesame and Lilies.
