March 27, 2025
I started drawing as a child before I learned to read and write, and this hobby of mine had a great influence on my personality. How did an artist by birth become a lawyer, I can’t explain it either, but over the years I developed a great interest in fine art and discovered hundreds of paintings in the major European galleries dedicated to beautiful Gypsy, Romani women. I wondered who these women actually were? What was their life like? Why is no one talking about them?
I know of no other ethnicity in Europe that has evoked such extreme feelings of admiration, envy, contempt and fear. It is an undeniable fact that many Roma have served as an inspiration for some of the greatest European artists but they have almost always remained anonymous. There are only few exceptions and one of them is Keomi Gray (1849-1914), a Romani woman from England. She was depicted in the famous oil painting “The Beloved” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882).
Keomi Gray can also be seen in the works of another British painter Frederick Sandys (1829-1904) for example in “Medea”. He first met her in Norwich and invited her to be his model in London but fell in love with this femme fatale. She quickly attracted the attention of artistic circles. It is believed that the novelist George Meredith (1828-1909) created a character based on Keomi’s personality in his book “The Adventures of Harry Richmond”.
Gradually, Roma images from the past are surfacing, slowly and with difficulty we are discovering long forgotten, buried, neglected facts about the mysterious history of the people known as Gypsies, just as archaeologists excavate new pyramids in Egypt or remnants of extinct human species. Is it not strange that a people so numerous, scattered all over the world, remains so unknown to others and to itself, despite the advances of technology and science in the 21st century? It is as if the time has stopped for Gypsies – enchanted and invisible, they are everywhere and nowhere.
More about Keomi Gray
https://artuk.org/discover/curations/dante-gabriel-rossettis-models/slide-page/19
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/keomi-gray-romani-from-painting-orhan-tahir-t2zse/?trackingId=wyDuKQniT4%2BdZ%2FFMueJLpQ%3D%3D
