Charles De Sousy Ricketts - Orpheus and Euridice c. 1922

Commentary by Hilary Morgan

Orpheus and Eurydice' brings together many of Ricketts's interests, both antiquarian and personal. Greek themes had interested him from the first in his book designs, sculpture and painting. In the early 1920s, when the present work was developed, he painted the 'Trojan Women' (Manchester City Art Gallery) and 'Diomed with the Horses of Achilles'.

His collection contained Greek pots, Tanagra figurines and Classical sculpture. Before he produced the present work he had published an essay on Greek dress in The Saturday Review in 1909, and designed several plays requiring Greek costume: Lawrence Binyon's Paris and Oenone (1906), von Hofmannstal's Electra (1908) for Mrs Patrick Campbell, andAlcestis, Medea and Iphigenia in Tauris (1920) for Mrs Penelope Wheeler.

He was also fascinated by the Orpheus and Eurydice story, probably for some of the same reasons that it had interested Watts, also because Ricketts, whose other paintings included such works as 'Montezuma', Donjuan' and the 'Betrayal of Christ' was preoccupied with the theme of the tragic hero, left isolated and lonely. Ricketts's best known sculpture, one of the small bronzes he exhibited in the Carfax Gallery in 1906, also represents 'Orpheus and Eurydice', but at their final parting (1905-1906; a version is in the Tate Gallery). The present picture does not represent this more common subject. When Ricketts was finishing the picture for the 1923 Summer Show at the Royal Academy, he wrote to a friend:

'The Orpheus and Erudicy - how is her name spelt? - are not in the act of parting. She is a ghost following him in a spring-lit landscape, watched by Hermes.'(Rickettes to Bottomley, 21 February 1923)

This dramatic design and the theatrical gesture reflect not only Ricketts' interest in the theatre but also the 'sense of design, the emotions of awe, melancholy and compassion' which he tried to attain in his work.

The versatility and varied achievements of Charles Ricketts are symbolized by the fact that he could paint with one hand while he was writing with the other. As his biography shows, painting was only one of the fields in which he achieved distinction. In the midst of this varied activity, he worked steadily at his painting and created an individual style in the Symbolist tradition which made some use of stylistic features drawn from the work of Daumier, Delacroix and Gustave Moreau but was primarily an expression of his own tragic view of life.

Sir Edmund Davis (1862-1939), the first owner of the present work, was one of the major British collectors of his generation. Born in Australia and educated in France, he settled in London. His collection of paintings included, among the Old Masters, Rembrandt's 'Saskia at her Toilet', three Canalettos, three Van Dycks (including a portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria), several Gainsboroughs, a Velazquez, a Hogarth and a Reynolds. The collection also contained important nineteenth century works, including two of Rossetti's early watercolours, oils by Millais and three important works by Whistler, of which the most famous was 'At the Piano' (exhibited Royal Academy 1860; Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio). It also contained six Rodin sculptures and paintings by Watts, Corot, Boudin and Daumier. Sir Edmund was particularly important as a patron of contemporary British art. In addition to making his own superb collection, he made major donations of British art to public collections.

Ricketts and Shannon were the unpaid and unofficial advisers who helped him to form a collection of such superb quality. He was also an enthusiast for their own works and owned seven paintings by Shannon, and seven bronzes and eight paintings by Ricketts including the present work. He offered them a flat in Lansdowne House, which he built as an artists' centre in 1902, and in 1918 he offered them the Roman-Norman keep at Chilham as a country retreat.

Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1923, Summer Exhibition, number 203; Bradford Art Gallery 1928, 35th Spring Exhibition, (Modern British Paintings and Sculpture) number 25, (£500); Manchester, 1933, Works by Orpen, McEvoy, Ricketts, number 76; London, Royal Academy, 1933, Commemorative Exhibition of the Works of Late Members, number 339

Provenance: Sir Edmund Davis, E.P. Bateson.

References

Manuscript letter from Ricketts to Gordon Bottomley (21st February 1923).

Morgan, Hilary and Nahum, Peter. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 175.

Edward Burne-Jones - Love in a tangle, a watercolour

AD 1882-98

An image from 'The Flower Book'

This small jewel-like watercolour with traces of gold was pasted directly onto a leaf in an album Burne-Jones titled 'The Flower Book', containing his fantasies inspired by the names of flowers. He added to it periodically from 1882 until his death.

The scene suggests the story of Ariadne, who gave Theseus a ball of golden thread to unwind as he wandered through a labyrinth in search of the minotaur (a mythological creature, half-man and half-bull). Here she waits anxiously for her lover to follow the thread back out of the maze.

The melancholy title is a colloquial name for a flower (probably either Clematis vitalba or Nigella damascena), which suggested the image of a maze. It may also allude to the disappointing outcome of Ariadne's love: she was abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos.

Burne-Jones delved deeply into classical and medieval legend for subjects for his art, sometimes (as here) using only the barest hint of a narrative as the stimulus for his rich imagination.

S. Wildman and J. Christian, Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998)

J.A Gere, Pre-Raphaelite drawings in the (London, The British Museum Press, 1994)

Aubrey Beardsley, Self-portrait

Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) was the most original genius of British art in the 1890s. His talent for drawing enabled him to escape a hated job as a clerk in an insurance company, and in his short career, before his early death from consumption, he became internationally famous for his illustrations which pushed against the limits of fin-de-siècle decadence. He drew in pen and ink, and his designs were produced as line-blocks, using the newly available process of photomechanical reproduction.

Beardsley's style is an entirely original blend of English Pre-Raphaelitism (especially Burne-Jones' style), French Rococo engravings and Japonisme. This is an early drawing and was reproduced for the first time in an album of designs published in 1899, the year after his death in France. It was presented to The British Museum by Robert Ross, a close friend of both Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, of whom he wrote one of the first biographies.

L.G. Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian (Oxford, Clarendon, 1990)

B. Reade, Aubrey Beardsley (London, Studio Vista, 1967)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Annunciation

Photo call for the arrival of The Lady of Shalott at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Helen and Cassandra by Frederick Sandys.

William Morris, Tulip and Rose woven panel, 1876

William De Morgan, tile panel, 1872-81

Flodden Field by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Flodden Field by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 1875-1883 [Painted in 1882]. Gouache and gold paint on paper in the original frame Signed EBJ lower left; inscribed on the back panel in pencil "Design for bas relief Battling Flodden" and "No 158." 20 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches; 52 x 100.5 centimetres. Provenance: The executors of the artist, 1904; David Greig, by descent in the family.

Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of stern strife, and carnage drear;
Of Flodden's fatal field
Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear
And broken was her shield. — Walter Scott, Marmion

Flodden Field was commissioned by George Howard, the ninth Earl of Carlisle, to decorate the library at Naworth Castle. The design was for a bas-relief to be modelled by Sir J E Boehm in 1882. The Earl had chosen the subject because his ancestors had been present at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513. George Howard had originally commissioned Burne-Jones to paint a triptych for the room. The artist had become so obsessed with his masterpiece,Arthur in Avalon, that it became apparent that lie would never rinish it and so Howard relinquished his claim and acceptedFlodden Field to go in its place.

Burne-Jones would have had a variety of sources to work for the subject of the battle of Flodden Field. It is said that "more poetry has been written about Fladden Field than any other battle since the days of Homer." The Battle was fought in an attempt by King James IV of Scotland to weaken the English forces in the approaching war between England and France. Thousands of human lives were sacrificed and King Jamcs himself was killed, "every man fought with a resolution and stubbornness beyond what the single army could ordinarily accomplish... hour after hour every inch of ground was doggedly contested." [James Robson]

Burne-Jones and Morris were frequenters of George Howard's circle of friends and fellow painters, who included Alphonse Legros, Giovanni Costa and Guiseppe Mazzini. All of them stayed at Naworth Castle in Cumberland. As a wealthy man, Howard was able to commission many paintings and Burne-Jones, and Morris undertook a number of other commissions for him including the decoration of his dining room at 1 Palace Green, Kensington, with the story of Cupid and Psyche (Waters, 54-55)

References

Bell, Malcolm. Sir Fdward Burne-Jones, A Record and Review London: George Bell and Sons, 1893.

Harrison, Martin. and Bill Waters. Burne-Jones. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1973.

Robson, James. Border Battles and Battlefields. Kelso, 1897.

Waters, Bill. Burne-Jones -- A Quest for Love: Works by Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bt and Related Works by Contemporary Artists. London: Peter Nahum, 1993. Catalogue number 22.

Cabinet

Philip Speakman Webb, Designer

Morris & Co., Manufacturer

Edward Burne-Jones, Painter

1861

Painted pine, oil paint on leather, brass, copper

H. 73 in. (185.4 cm), W. 45 in. (114.3 cm), D. 21 in. (53.3 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York