Friday, August 13, 2010

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale - Guinevere - 'Before the Coming of the Sinful Queen' - Tennyson




http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1911P67


This scene of Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur and lover of Sir Lancelot, was published as the last plate of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King' (1911). The queen is shown in repentant nun's habit, striving to be a model of good womanhood - one of the most topical, on-going debates surrounding woman in pre-First World War Britain. BMAG has a letter from Eleanor Fortesque Brickdale to Mr Kaines Smith discussing her help in acquiring Byam Shaw's painting 'The Boer War' (25 Jan 1925) .

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