March 9, 1849

His parents were one of the great literary couples of the Victorian era. Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning,("Pen") (March 9, 1849 to July 8, 1912)) was the only child of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. One library summarizes his significance, and we excerpt:

[His parents had stressed the arts in his education but] 'Pen seemed without ambition or purpose until John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, suggested to Pen that he had a talent for sculpture and painting. The young Browning studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris, and Jean-Arnould Heyermans in Antwerp, Belgium. Although he gained considerable respect, Pen Browning never became part of the British art establishment. He tended to paint very large canvases which have not survived well. His favorite sculptural subject was the female nude and this offended the taste of the more prudish Victorians.....

'By 1887 Pen had rediscovered his love for Italy and lived there for most of the rest of his life. He had more or less abandoned his career as an artist but continued to paint for pleasure and produced some excellent portraits of his father.
.....
'[Although he was estranged from his heiress wife] Pen showed great solicitude for his elderly aunt, Sarianna Browning, and for the old servants who had cared for him as a child. They all had a home with him in Venice, then Asolo, and Florence. He loved animals, pythons, and dachshund dogs, among others.'

'His sight caused him problems and this greatly limited his ability to paint. Portly and cheerful, he enjoyed the Italian good life, living chiefly in Asolo where he is still remembered fondly. He invested in a lace factory to bring employment to the hillside town...'

His talent was genuine, but did Pen Browning apply it to painting a cat? We have verbal evidence in the affirmative.

Rosamond Lehmann, in her memoirs, The Swan in the Evening (1967) mentions that, in
her childhood, the library was "the unfailing heart of my security." Her description of the library includes portraits on the wall and one was painted by her great uncle Rudolf Lehmann, a portrait "of Robert Browning." On an opposite wall a portrait by Browning's son "Pen" hung, and shows "a dear old French abbe with a whimsical smile, clad in soutane and skullcap. A tabby cat drowses on his knees, and he is sitting at his breakfast table, enjoying a big steaming cup of coffee."

Pen Browning sounds like someone we would like to know.