http://victorianweb.org/painting/howard/drawings/2.html
Sunday, December 18, 2011
The Marriage of Editha with Sigtrygg, King of Northumbria windows
The Marriage of Editha with Sigtrygg, King of Northumbria
By Ford Madox Brown, Thomas Matthews Rooke
1909
This watercolour is a copy of the first window of the south side of the Chancel Clerestory, St Edith's, Tamworth, Staffordshire depicting Athelstan, King of the West Saxon's giving away his sister, St Editha to Sigtrig, King of Northumbria, who places a ring on her finger as Aella, Bishop of Lichfield looks on. The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, holds the original cartoons for this window which date from 1873.The designs appear to have caused some controversy as a letter from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Jane Morris suggests:'Some of cartoons of Old Brown's (made for Top's [Morris'] firm) are being published in an architectural paper. Really I must say they are inconceivable. Every figure (it is a long series) is passing one hand through the stone mullion of the window into the next panel of glass!!-each panel containing one figure. It is called the Story of St Edith. I must say if this series was what reduced Top to desperation, I think every one would have sympathised with him [replacing Brown as designer] if he had only shown the cartoons' (John Bryson and J. C. Troxell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris Correspondance, 1976, p. 86).Evidently not everyone thought Brown's cartoons were badly conceived and J. R. Holliday, an avid collector of Morris and Co. stained glass cartoons, commissioned three watercolour copies of the windows from Thomas Matthews Rooke (1842-1942). According to a letter written in 1935 by G. S. Holliday'Mr Holliday took photographs of [the windows] & enlarged them & prepared them for Mr. Rooke ... to colour from the originals. Mr Rooke spent some weeks [at Tamworth] on the work (by special arrangement with Mr Holliday who was satisfied that it was a good reproduction of the colour in the windows themselves)' (Unpublished letter from G. S. Holliday to Dr Bonseer, 29 March 1935, BMAG).Rooke worked as Burne-Jones's studio assistant from 1869 until the latter's death in 1898. From 1878 until 1893 Rooke also spent half of his time producing watercolours for Ruskin's project to record old buildings threatened with demolition or restoration. Rooke was a talented painter in his own right and produced watercolours and oils of religious, imaginative and architectural subjects. LM
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Victorian & British Impressionist Art - Christie's sale -15 December 2011 London
Frank Cadogan Cowper
Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth
Price Realized
£469,250
($724,991)
Friday, December 16, 2011
Waiting for the Verdict and the Liverpool Academy (Speel)
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=13624Waiting for the Verdict, Abraham Solomon's impressive picture of 1857, was the centre of a great battle between the supporters of the Pre-Raphaelites and their detractors. The Liverpool Academy, founded in 1810 and as such one of the oldest art corporations, had between 1851 and 1856 awarded their annual prize to Pre-Raphaelite pictures five times out of six. When in 1857 The Blind Girl by Millais won, the traditionalists supported Solomon's Waiting for the Verdict, and there was much discussion in the press. The Athenium weighed in on the side of Solomon, at which John Ruskin staunchly supported the Pre-Raphaelite picture, writing that the award to Millais 'was the first instance on record of the entirely just and beneficial working of the academical system'. More arguments followed, and the following year the Liverpool Academy showed their defiance of opposing opinion by selecting for their prize another Pre-Raphaelite work, by Ford Madox Brown. Incensed, Liverpool town council cut off funding to the Academy, and within 10 years the body had run out of money and ceased exhibiting.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/speel/paint/solomon3.htm
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