Vernon Lushington Thomas Hughes, and Richard Buckley Litchfield, became a unifying force at the College. He was a friend to artists, authors and activists, particularly those of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts Movement who gravitated to the Working Men's College. In 1856, it was he who first introduced Edward Burne-Jones to Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his college rooms. Rossetti used Lushington’s wife, Jane, as a model in 1865. Lushington, friend of William Morris, was a frequent visitor to Kelmscott Manor. He was a close friend of Leslie Stephen and his family; Stephen’s daughter Virginia (later Woolf) based her character
Proserpine (Rossetti painting) commissioned eighteen paintings from Rossetti, not counting unfulfilled commissions. Soon after Leyland acquired his first Rossetti painting, he and Rossetti explored the idea of a Rossetti triptych, which was eventually formed with "Mnemosyne", "The Blessed Damozel", and "Proserpine". Three additional Rossetti paintings were then hung in Leyland's drawing room, all of which Leyland called "stunners." Proserpine (Rossetti painting) Proserpine (also Proserpina) is an oil painting on canvas by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1874 and currently housed at Tate Britain. In his "Proserpine", the artist illustrates in his typical Pre-Raphaelite style the Roman goddess who lives