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Abstract
The Apostles cabinetFootnote1 is one of the most recognisable objects that Charlotte Brontë encountered in life and subsequently represented in fiction. Two years before the publication of Jane Eyre (1847), Brontë had visited Hathersage in Derbyshire and had seen the Apostles cabinet in situ; the object clearly remained embedded in her memory. Although the Brontë Parsonage Museum purchased the Apostles cabinet in 1935, no one has yet identified the individual apostles depicted on it, or deeply considered the cabinet’s imaginative recreation in Brontë’s novel. This article will present previously unknown information about the Apostles cabinet, including the fact that eleven of the cabinet’s twelve portraits are modelled on engravings by Cornelis van Caukercken produced circa 1650–1660, which in turn were based on a series of paintings by Anthony Van Dyck created circa 1615–1620. Understanding the cabinet as a material object will enable an investigation of several curious aspects of Brontë’s imaginative transformation of it. I will argue that the fictional cabinet in Jane Eyre serves multiple literary purposes: to enhance the Gothic setting; to contribute to Brontë’s subtle characterisation of Mr Rochester as Catholic; and to evoke the themes of redemption, healing, sin, and betrayal that pervade the novel.Footnote2
Author’s Note
This research article was written before the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s exciting restoration project of the Apostles cabinet in late 2023, initiated and guided by the museum’s Principal Curator, Ann Dinsdale.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I have chosen to use the term ‘Apostles cabinet’ to describe the object in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, even though it is often referred to as the Apostles’ cupboard (with or without the apostrophe). The word ‘cabinet’ connects the physical object with Charlotte Brontë’s description of it in Jane Eyre as ‘a great cabinet’ (Brontë’ Citation[1847] 2000, 210). The use of ‘Apostles’ without an apostrophe indicates that the Apostles are the group represented on the cabinet, not the owners of it.
2 I will be expanding on the ideas presented by Alexander and Pearson (Citation2016, 103).
3 The Brontë Parsonage Museum began a costly and lengthy restoration of the Apostles cabinet in October 2023, after this article was written.
4 The material in this paragraph is in narrative form derived from Stubbs (Citation2011), although I have occasionally interpreted the primary sources differently.
5 I am grateful for the Stubbs website’s reproduction of so many helpful primary source documents (Stubbs Citation2011).
6 I have organised the letters chronologically in a different order than Jennifer Stubbs.
7 The name of the letter-writer is difficult to decipher.
8 Because of the dates on the telegram and letter, I am interpreting this information differently from Jennifer Stubbs, who concludes, ‘They agreed I suppose to 30 pounds, wow, a 5 pound increase’ (Stubbs Citation2011). I think Butterfield was anxious to secure the Apostles cabinet for the museum and agreed to £30 before he was able to hear from the other officials in the Brontë Society, one of whom wanted to pay no more than £25.
9 In the New Testament, the names of the twelve Apostles are found in Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; and Luke 6:14–16.
10 I am using Nora de Poorter’s names for the apostles, translated from the Latin names on van Caukercken’s engravings.
11 The story of Peter’s denial and repentance is found in Matthew 26:33–35, 69–75; Mark 14:29–31, 66–72; and Luke 22:33–34, 54–72.
12 Examples are Giuseppe Vermiglio, Penitent Saint Peter and San Pietro e Il Gallo (artvee.com 2023); Gerrit van Honthorst, Saint Peter Penitent; and Guido Reni, Repentance of St. Peter.
13 One thinks of Branwell Brontë’s omission of his sisters’ hands in the ‘pillar portrait’, employing an almost a pre-cubist style to tuck their hands underneath a lectern piled with books.
14 I am now convinced that the cabinet is oak rather than walnut and ebony, and I will take this opportunity to correct the reference to ‘walnut and ebony’ in Alexander and Pearson (Citation2016, 103).
15 I chose to refer to a work I co-authored to illustrate the common assumption that the Apostles cabinet was at North Lees Hall, an assumption that I am now challenging based on further research.
16 The inventory of Moorseats also yields the interesting fact that it had three rooms described as ‘Red Room No 1’, ‘No 2 Red Room’, and ‘No 3 Red Room’. Perhaps these rooms were the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë’s red rooms in Jane Eyre? Although Charlotte’s early works reveal her penchant for decorating rooms lavishly, Jane Eyre could also be indebted to some of the furniture items at Moorseats: ‘Red Room No 1’ contained an ‘ottoman in crimson damask’ and ‘bedside chair’, and ‘No 2 Red Room’ an ‘oak bedstead and mattress’, ‘large double chest drawers’, ‘feather bed bolster and 2 pillows’, and ‘counterpane’ (Stubbs Citation2011). The red-room at Gateshead had ‘a bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask’, and ‘the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs, were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it’ (Brontë Citation[1847] 2000, 13–14). The drawing-room and boudoir at Thornfield have ‘crimson couches and ottomans’ (104). It is possible that Charlotte Brontë was inspired by the multiple red rooms at Moorseats to create her two fictional red rooms in Jane Eyre.
17 As an aside, it is interesting that St John Rivers, often considered oppressively patriarchal, considered it possible for a woman to be an apostle.
18 Mark 8:34, King James (Authorized) Version of the Bible.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sara L. Pearson
Sara L. Pearson is an Associate Professor of English at Trinity Western University, Langley, BC, Canada. Her research focuses on a wide array of topics related to the Brontës, and she is currently working on a critical edition of Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor. Her recent publications include ‘Charlotte Brontë in Narnia?: Intertextuality and Gender in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia’ in The Inklings and Culture, edited by Monika B. Hilder, Sara L. Pearson, and Laura N. Van Dyke, Cambridge Scholars, 2020.