The Apulian red-figured Amphora

In the collections, there is a large and colourful ancient vase. Recently we decided to take this vase out of the store and put it on display in the Collectors Gallery. You may remember a blog from a few months ago, The Volunteers biggest nightmare? written by Derek Niemann.

Once the vase was safely locked in the case we stood back and began to ponder what story was being told with the two beautifully painted scenes on each side of the vase.

Other questions flooded in such as: How old is the vase? Where was it made? Who owned it?

The answers as it turns out were more exciting and complex than we thought.

The vessel is actually a wheel-made red-figured amphora (a jug with two handles and a narrow neck) and can be dated to 350 BCE.

Large painted vessels of this type are associated with Greek potters who moved from their homeland in the 8^th century BCE to set up their own specialist pottery workshops in Apulia, specifically in the town of Taras located in the “Heel” of southern Italy. The settlement of Taras was a thriving port during the Greek and Roman empires, and still is today.

The painted scenes, one on each side of the amphora, illustrate two types of funeral. The scene on side 1 shows a grand temple-like structure with a woman walking into the tomb, carrying a wreath, a white sash and a box. The woman is symbolically painted in white to tell us that she has died and is crossing from our world into the next. She has two female mourners outside, holding ritual bucket-like vessels and torches, who watch over her final journey.

The scene on the other side shows a more simple style of funeral ceremony. Two male mourners face each other across a simple box-shaped tomb. The tomb has a zigzag decoration at the top with a black sash tied around the middle.

The one answer we will never know is who owned this ancient amphora. Nevertheless, we now know far more about this wonderful pottery vessel than we did before.

The Higgins Bedford thanks Alan Johnston, Emeritus Reader in Classical Archaeology at University College London, for his identification and generous advice on the story behind this Apulian red figure amphora. 

Written by Liz Pieksma, Keeper of Archaeology

Get your teeth into this!

The Higgins Bedford is currently closed but when we reopen you can visit the Settlement Gallery to see our collections. In the Settlement Gallery there is a mammoth molar in the case called “Sculpted by Ice” (item no.2). They look amazing – and they are. 

For a start, mammoth molars are amongst the largest grinding teeth of any animal ever, averaging at around 15 cm in length. They needed them, for chewing the coarse grass and sedges that they lived on. It's said that mammoth teeth are as tough as any rock as more have survived throughout the years compared to their bones.

Did you know that, like us, mammoths had milk teeth and adult teeth? But unlike us, they had six sets in their lives. Once a tooth was worn down from grinding food, new molars grew from the back of the jaw, and moved forward to replace worn-out ones - just like modern elephants. This process continued until the sixth set was in place and was used for the rest of the mammoth's life. There were no more teeth to replace the sixth set once it was worn down which meant that mammoths struggled to grind down and eat their food.

We have molars, incisors and canine teeth. Mammoths didn’t have canines, and they only had four molars at a time, two at the top, two at the bottom. They had two incisors which grew throughout their lives – their tusks. You can read about Mammoth tusks in our previous post HERE.

Written by Sarah, Collections Volunteer.

Terrific Tuskers

Mammoth tusks are remarkable – you can see part of one in the Settlement gallery, in the “landscape and people” case (when we reopen). 

They are incisor teeth that grow from sockets in the upper jaw (there were no incisors on the lower jaw). Mammoths only had one adult set, although they had five adult sets of molars. The tusks could grow to incredible sizes. The longest ever recorded was 4.2m long and weighed a staggering 91kg! This came from a male, but it seems that females had them too. About a quarter of the length was in the socket.

Mammoth tusks are bigger than those of modern elephants, and much more curved. They used them for similar tasks – manipulating things, foraging, and of course, fighting, but perhaps also to sweep snow off the grass they ate. Modern elephants are right or left “tusked” (in the same way as we are with our hands), and mammoths may have been too. So one tusk was often more worn than the other.

And if you want to know how old a mammoth was when it died, you can count the rings inside the tusk – just like you can do with a tree! This is because the tusks continued to grow throughout the animal’s life. 

Written by Sarah, Collections Volunteer.

Platyfacts - Meet Kevin

Meet Kevin - he’s a duck-billed platypus. At the Higgins Bedford, Kevin is a much loved part of the collections. Platypuses are a bit special as there isn’t any living animal that’s very much like them at all.  Every now and then we'll post a fascinating fact about platypuses like Kevin. Read on for our very first platyfact. What’s in a name? ‘Platypus’ comes from a scientific name that’s not in use any more, meaning ‘flat-footed’ and 'duck-like’. The scientific name is now Ornithorhynchus anatinus, which means ‘bird-snouted duck-like’. The plural of platypus is ‘platypuses’ or ‘platypodes’. Technically it’s wrong to say 'platypi', because the name platypus is of Greek origin, not Latin. And just for the record, there’s no formally agreed name for the babies. Some people call them ‘puggles’ but that was originally the name given to baby echidnas. Other people call them ‘platypups’. Either way they’re very cute… Check back soon for our next platyfact.

Fishing for Clues!

 BEDFM 4970. Donated by R W Howe, 9 May 1923 

Among the items in The Collectors Gallery, there are three bony structures about the length of a hand. They’re labelled “FISH TUSK R AMAZON”, but look at a picture of a tusk fish on the web, and it just doesn’t seem right. So what are they?

I contacted Project Noah, an online platform which “harnesses the power of citizen scientists everywhere”. Could anyone solve the puzzle of the “tusks”?  And amazingly, they could! 

The answer came from a fish specialist in the Tasmania Museum. Our “tusks” are actually spines from the front fins of a catfish, probably the Megalodoras, also know as the Giant Talking Catfish. Result!

So if you come and pay us a visit, have a look for the "tusk fish" in our Collectors Gallery.

Written by Collections Volunteer Sarah

Your Paintings

A fantastic new resource has just been launched on the BBC’s website called Your Paintings that aspires to give access to every single oil painting in public collections. Its' certainly made a great start with more than 63000 records online so far!

The project came from the Public Catalogue Foundation, who have been going round county by county recording all the paintings in the institutions in each area in order to produce a book on those collections. They came to Bedfordshire thankfully before we had packed away all our collections and the glossy volume Oil Paintings in Public Ownership – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire came out earlier this year.

As well as all of the oil paintings in Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, the county is represented by paintings from Bedford Borough Council, the John Bunyan Museum, Moot Hall, Wrest Park, and the University of Bedfordshire, as well as many others.

The Your Paintings website lets you browse through the paintings, search by Gallery or Collection, or search by artist - where each painter is beautifully represented by a painted portrait. Clicking on an artist can lead you on to a wealth of information that includes not only the usual biography and selection of works but also slideshows and links to BBC content on the iPlayer such as the programmes The Culture Show and Making Masterpieces.

An area we particularly like (and can't wait to explore fully!) is the Tagger feature. This allows users of the site to tag content in the pictures so that the subjects or details in the pictures can be searched on. This could be a simple as the keywords 'portrait' or 'landscape' or could get far more specific pointing out details like 'bonnet' or 'oak tree', or art historical genres such as 'Impressionism' or 'Vorticism'.

The possibilties are endless! The site gives you the opportunity to bring together pictures from all over the country in your personally constructed themes. And soon users will be able to create their very own guided tours too. Curators, Education departments, art enthusiasts and visitors alike will find this a valuable tool. Most importantly it should help to give the public a sense of ownership of their national and local collections, and get out and visit their museums and galleries. KP

Collection Focus

Dora Carrington (1893-1932)

In the past few years the gallery has been able to acquire a number of fine works by the artist Dora Carrington. Carrington grew up in Bedford, attending Bedford High School, before going to the Slade and becoming part of one of the most interesting art scenes in this country in the 20th century. The Cecil Higgins Collection, therefore, is an ideal place for her work to be, alongside many of her contempories.

This week we have unveiled our latest acquisiton, Carrington's 1911 study of Bedford Market, and it seemed the ideal moment to reflect on the collection that has grown since 2004. KP

Biography

Dora Carrington (1893-1932) was one of a group of young artists that included Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler and CRW Nevinson, who attended the Slade at the beginning of the 20th century. Referred to by their tutor as the Slade’s ‘last crisis of brilliance’, they emerged at a time of great change in the British art world, caused in part by Roger Fry’s Post Impressionism exhibition in 1910. Although Carrington admired the work of Cezanne and Matisse, unlike the majority of her contemporaries, she represented figures and landscapes as she saw them, refusing to respond to changing artistic movements. This decision led John Rothenstein to describe her as ‘the most neglected serious painter of her time’.

Carrington’s work is inherently autobiographical; she painted places where she lived and people she loved. The subject of her most famous portrait is the author Lytton Strachey, with whom she lived from 1917 until his death in 1932, followed two months later by her own suicide. Much is known about Carrington’s life as she was a prolific letter writer, corresponding with the artistic and literary greats of the time, including Gerald Brenan, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Rosamund Lehmann and fellow Bloomsbury group member Virginia Woolf. Carrington is also depicted in fiction; she is Mary Bracegirdle in Aldous Huxley’s ‘Crome Yellow’ and Minette Darrington in D H Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’. VP

Bedford Market, 1911.

Pencil, ink, and watercolour on paper 43.1 x 67.5cm

Accession No.: P.1005

Bedford Market is a rare depiction of Carrington’s early life in Bedford. Although she made many drawings of her father and brothers, there is no known other work which takes as its subject the town of Bedford. The Carrington family moved to Bedford in 1903 when Dora was ten. At that time, a large part of the town’s population was made up of the families of retired soldiers or colonial administrators. Like many of these families, the Carrington’s chose Bedford because of the town’s good but inexpensive schools, in which Dora and her four siblings were educated, Dora attending Bedford High School for Girls until she entered the Slade School of Art in 1910.

Carrington drew Bedford Market on a rare trip home from the Slade a year after entering the school. She found the contrast between the freedoms of London and the Edwardian society of the small market town of Bedford unbearable. Her brother Noel wrote that, though Bedford was only fifty miles from London by train, it ‘might have been almost a thousand for all the cultural influence then exercised on it by the metropolis’.

In her first year at the Slade, the teaching emphasis would have been on draughtsmanship and Carrington produced two distinct styles of drawings; an academic one in which form and modelling were predominant, as seen in her life drawings, and the more linear style seen in Bedford Market and other works such as Cockney Picnic (c.1911). Both of these styles show her scrupulous attention for detail and eye for arrangement.

The view point of Bedford Market is from Bedford High Street looking onto St Paul’s Square, where the market is still held today. The names of Bedford traders on the market stalls and shops can be clearly seen, as can the gravestones from the Church in the far left corner. VP

PROVENANCE: Anthony d'Offay; Private Collection; Bonhams, from whom purchased by Gallery in 2010

EXHIBITIONS: London, Upper Grosvenor Galleries, Carrington, A Retrospective Exhibition, 6 November - 28 November 1970, London; Anthony d'Offay, Carrington and her Friends, 25 June - 26 July, 1980; London, The Barbican Art Galley, Carrington - The Exhibition, 21 September - 10 December 1995.

REFERENCES: Noel Carrington, Carrington, Paintings, Drawings and Decorations, Thames and Hudson, 1980, p.16 (ill. b&w); Gretchen Gerzina, Carrington, A Life of Dora Carrington 1893-1932, Pimlico, 1995, p19; Jane Hill, The Art of Dora Carrington, The Herbert Press, London, 1994 p.14 (ill. b&w)

Purchased with the assistance of The National Art Collections Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Spanish Boy, c.1924.
Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 50.8cm.

Accession No.: P.993

Spanish Boy was probably painted in Yegen, Spain at the home of Gerald Brenan, with whom Carrington was having an affair. Brenan regularly held musical evenings and it was at one such night that Carrington wrote of witnessing a beautiful young man singing: ‘Then a young man with a face so beautiful that it is imprinted on my memory so that I could draw every feature…His hat was tilted back from his face and showed his rather bulging forehead with a shining highlight on it. He had a most amazing mouth a short upper lip with a slight curl... Suddenly the profile altered, the eyes glittered wildly the mouth opened, the forehead puckered. A strange wailing song came out and his whole body shook and the face became contorted with sadness and passion. It was a most moving song.’ VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family Purchased with the assistance of The National Art Collections Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

Mrs Box, 1919.

Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 76.2cm.

Accession No.: P.936

Carrington first met Mrs Box whilst on holiday with Lytton in Cornwall in September 1917, painting her as a traditional farmer’s wife in an old-fashioned bonnet. VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family.

Purchased with the assistance of The Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Teddy Carrington, c.1915.

Pencil on brown paper 44.6 x 30.3cm

Accession No.: P.1003

Carrington idolised her brother Edward, known as Teddy and his death at the Somme in 1916 greatly affected her. In 1923 she described him in a letter to Gerald Brenan as having ‘had very dark olive skin, almost black eyes and pitch black hair - as a little girl I always thought there was a mysterious secret attached to him and that he wasn’t really my Father’s son because we were all fair’. VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family

Noel Carrington, c.1912.

Pencil on paper 31.5 x 39.9cm

Accession No.: P.1002

This work, produced when she was at the Slade, is an excellent example of the academic style of drawing that she had developed there. The sitter is her brother Noel whom she often persuaded to sit for her on visits home to Bedford. VP

Fragment of a letter to Margaret Burr, about 1910

Accesion No.: AM15

This fragment is all that remains of a letter to a friend of Carrington's named Margaret Burr, referred to here as Marmie, who had attended Bedford High School at the same time as Carrington. The illustration of a bee in the top left corner makes reference to Margaret’s nickname.

Carrington was an avid letter writer throughout her life, but very few letters survive from her time at the Slade. This letter was written whilst she was staying at Byng Place, London a respectable hostel for students and makes reference to a visit from her sister Lottie visiting her for tea. VP

Collection Focus

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
A closer look at an ever-popular section of the collection

Art referred to as Pre-Raphaelite remains one of the most enduring and popular aspects of British art. In a broader context this includes not just the original core The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but also their associates and followers. The original three were joined in that year by the poet William Michael Rossetti, the painter James Collinson, the writer Frederic George Stephens and the sculptor Thomas Woolner. At the heart of this group were the ideals of truth to nature, imagery with a moral content and a rejection of the approach of the Royal Academy, as typified by it’s president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Instead they sought to return to the detail, colour and compositional structures of 14th century Italian and Flemish art.

The Cecil Higgins Collection has works by all three of the original Brotherhood as well as works by Ford Madox Brown, John Ruskin, Elizabeth Siddal, Frederick Sandys, Arthur Hughes, Simeon Solomon, William Dyce, and Edward Burne-Jones.

Here we will feature all the works across several articles, starting with the core three of Rossetti, Millais and Hunt.

For further research on the Pre-Raphaelites we strongly recommend Birmingham Art Gallery’s Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

(1828‑1882): Elizabeth Siddal, c.1855‑1858. Pen and sepia, shaded with the finger on paper, 15.6 ´ 9.4 cm, inscribed on reverse by W.M. Rossetti: Liz, by G. circa 1855 or perhaps as late as 1858. Accession no.: P.433

Rossetti met Elizabeth SIDDAL (1829-62) in 1850 when she was twenty or twenty-one. She had bright copper coloured hair and drooping eyelids and was called 'Gug' or 'Guggums' by Rossetti who drew her innumerable times ‑ 'it is like a monomania with him', Madox BROWN wrote. Eventually they married in Hastings (where this had probably been drawn; see inscription) in 1860, Rossetti described her at this time as 'looking lovelier than ever' but the marriage was not a success.

Siddal, who was herself an amateur painter (see P.400), died in February 1862 probably from an overdose of laudanum. Rossetti was so distraught that he buried his manuscript poems in her coffin but gained permission to disinter them in 1869 as he wished to make a complete edition of all his poems. Unwilling to do this himself, the task was undertaken by his friend and agent Charles Augustus Howell. EJ/JM

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882):
Fanny Cornforth (study for Fair Rosamund) , 1861. Coloured chalks on paper, 32.2 ´ 25.9 cm, signed: monogram, 1861. Accession no.: P.297

A study for the oil of the same year, (Surtees no.128) in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. Probably based on the ballad Fair Rosamund by Thomas Deloney (?1560-1600).

Rosamund Clifford (c.1139-76) awaits the arrival of her lover, Henry II, in 1174. In the story a secret retreat was built for her in the centre of a maze at Woodstock, near Oxford. She was finally discovered by Queen Eleanor, who had her put to death.

Fanny Cornforth (1824-1906) became Rossetti’s model in 1858. She also became his mistress before his wife’s death, later acting as a sort of housekeeper in Cheyne Walk. She was described by William Rossetti as having 'no charm or breeding, education or intellect'; Swinburne referred to her as a ‘bitch’. She is also noted though for having an affectionate nature, married twice and finally grew so stout that William Bell Scott described her as 'that three waisted creature'. EJ/JM

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI(1828-1882): Paolo and Francesca, 1862. Watercolour on paper, 31.7 ´ 60.3 cm, inscribed: monogram, 1862 'O lasso', in central panel; inscribed along the foot of the first compartment, 'Quanti dolci pensier Quanto disio', inscribed along the foot of the second compartment, 'Meno costor al doloroso passo!'. Originally on the back of the picture Rossetti had transcribed two verses from the Inferno and added ' Francesca da Rimini (watercolour) D.G. Rossetti Sept.1862'. Accession no.: P.548

This illustrates the story related by Dante in Canto V of his Inferno in which Francesca with her lover and brother‑in‑law, Paola Malatesta, are murdered by her husband, Sigismondo Malatesta. The left-hand compartment shows the lovers kissing. In the central panel Dante and Virgil stand crowned with laurel and bay-leaf, looking pityingly at the right-hand panel where the lovers, locked in each others arms, float through the flames of Hell, forever united.

Rossetti had this subject in mind from c.1849: a sheet of four sketches on paper show three groups of seated lovers with an open book on their knees whilst the fourth group are standing. The earliest triptych version was acquired by RUSKIN and is now in the Tate Gallery (N03056). This, the slightly enlarged second version was painted for the collector James Leathart; it is reputed to have been one of his favouite paintings, with Leathart likening its colour to ‘jewels’. A third version is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (No.3266/4). EJ/JM

When I made answer, I began: “Alas!
How many sweet thoughts and how much desire
Led these two onward to the dolorous pass!”
Then turned to them, as who would fain inquire,
And said: “Francesca, these thine agonies
Wring tears for pity and grief which they inspire:
But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs,
When and what way did love instruct you so
That he in your vague longings made you wise ?”
Then she said to me: “There is no greater woe
Than the remembrance of past happy days
In misery: and this thy guide doth know.
But if the first beginnings to retrace
Of our said love, may yield thee solace here,
So will I be as one that weeps and says:

'One day we read, for pastime and sweet cheer
Of Lancelot how he found Love tyrannous:
We were alone and without any fear.
Our eyes were drawn together reading thus
Full oft, and still our cheeks would pale and glow;
But one sole point it was that conquered us.
For when we read of that great lover, how
He kissed the smile which he had longed to win-
Then he whom nought can sever from me now
For ever, kissed my mouth, all quivering.
A pander was the book and he that writ:
Upon that day we read no more therein'.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882): Sir Tristram and La Belle Yseult Drinking the Love Potion, 1867. Watercolour on paper, 62.3 ´ 59.1 cm, inscribed: monogram, 1867
Accession no.: P.401

This is the watercolour version of an original cartoon (not traced) for a series of stained glass windows made by the Morris firm for the entrance hall of Walter Dunlop’s house, Harden Grange, Bingley in Yorkshire, 1862. The stained glass panels, including Rossetti’s other design for the series, The Fight with Sir Marhaus, are now in Bradford Art Galleries & Museums.

The subject is taken from Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (c.1450) and was one of the most popular love stories of the Middle Ages.

Tristram travels to Cornwall to seek adventure, where, in his first major feat, he kills Sir Morholt, brother-in-law and champion of Anguish, King of Ireland. Tristram, suffering terrible wounds from the struggle goes to Ireland to seek help from Yseult (daughter of Anguish), who has special healing skills. During his convalescence Yseult falls in love with him, although her hand is promised to King Mark of Cornwall.

On their return to Cornwall Tristram and Yseult share the love potion intended for her future husband; it bursts into flames as their glasses touch. Above, to the right, the figure of Love with crimson wings draws an arrow from his quiver. The lovers continue the deception until trapped by Mark. Yseult eventually returns to Mark whilst Tristram goes into exile.

Rossetti considered it to be 'one of my very best watercolours particularly full and deep in colour', (letter to James Leathart 8 May 1872). This was not however an opinion shared by Leathart (1820-95), who, having acquired the picture, stated in a letter, ‘I am sorry to say the drawing does not come up to my expectations. Its colour is doubtless fine but not equal to that of the ‘Paolo and Francesca’ [see P.548] whilst in every other quality it is as far behind that noble work' (draft of a letter from James Leathart 25 May 1872).

Rossetti does however capture the full emotional intensity of the moment, concentrating the viewer’s gaze on the lovers duplicity.

Jane Morris is recognizable as the model for Yseult. EJ/JM

Sir JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, Bt., P.R.A.(1829-1896): The Huguenot, c.1852. Watercolour and pen and ink on paper, 13.3x8.7 cm, inscribed: monogram.
Accession no.: P.260



A replica of the whole composition of one of Millais’ most famous and popular pictures, exhibited at the R.A. in 1852 together with this quotation:

When the clock of the Palais de Justice shall sound upon the great bell, at day-break, (on St Bartholomew’s day) then each good Catholic must bind a strip of white linen round his arm, and place a fair white cross in his cap.
The Order of the Duke of Guise.

The Massacre of St Batholomew took place on the morning of 24 August 1572.

Here, a young Catholic woman, during a stolen meeting, is entreating her Protestant lover to wear the white linen sash, but he is gently resisting and refusing to save his skin by denying his faith. At his feet nasturtiums grow, a token of sorrow, while ivy, the emblem of constancy, clings to the wall behind the lovers.

The model for the Huguenot was a friend of Millais’ family, General Arthur Lemprière, while a professional model, Miss Ryan, posed for the young woman; Mrs George Hodgkinson, wife of Millais’ half-brother, also posed for this figure.

The oil was warmly praised in The Times, 14 May, 1852 although the figure of the lover, a thorough Calvinist, was criticised because, 'his right leg has disappeared altogether, which gives him the appearance of what ornithologists call a "wader"’.
A leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Millais later pursued a brilliantly successful career as an academic and society painter. He claimed to be the highest paid artist in history, was the first painter to be created a baronet and was also elected President of the R.A. a few months before he died. EJ

Sir JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, Bt., P.R.A.(1829-1896): After an illustration to the poem Maid Avoraine by R. Williams Buchanan, c.1861-2. Watercolour on paper, 10.7x14.5 cm, inscribed: monogram. Accession no.: P.166

The illustration to the poem Maid Avoraine by R. Williams Buchanan (1841-1901) appeared in Once a Week in July 1862 (Vol. VII, p.98), so Millais’ drawing can be dated 1861-2. He may have made a second version as well.

The poem recounts the story of Sir Gawain and the ‘country-bred’ Maid Avoraine. Sir Gawain forsakes the Court to seek a more peaceful life but on meeting Avoraine doubts her love for him now ‘Stript of my sword and coat of gold’. Sir Gawain puts her love to the test, asking that she should run at his side, dressed as a page as he rides ‘O’er wood and field and flood’ for two days. The maid agrees and on the second day Buchanan recounts,

When at the cottage door they stopt
Down at his feet the maiden dropt,
Worn with the weary race;
But Gawain leapt to earth in bliss,
And caught her to him with a kiss
That burned the tearful face,-
Saying aloud, “At last 'tis plain
Thou lovest me well, Maid Avoraine.

Sir Gawain now has the proof he needs that she does truly love him, but, unfortunately for him, she spurns his renewed love for her by casting ‘away thy worth/ In pity for my lowly birth’. Sir Gawain in his anger returns to Court leaving Avoraine whose ‘hope be dead’. EJ/JM

WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT, O.M. (1827-1910) Peace and War illustrations to a poem by Leigh Hunt, 1848. Pen and ink on paper, 13.2 ´ 21.5 cm, inscribed probably at a later date: WHH Peace 1848; on reverse: Figure sketches in pencil Accession No.:P.135

According to Hunt these were designed for the Cyclographic Club in 1848. The club would set subjects for members to draw and later criticize. Of this work D.G. ROSSETTI said:

The Subject new and impressive being taken moreover from a glorious poem which deserves illustration. In the first sketch I agree with Mr Deverill that the old woman too much resembles the German ‘StoryTeller’, although with him I doubt not that the coincidence is accidental. I think too that this figure is rather too angular in lines and that the leg is too much forward for the position, something more over should be seen of the left arm. I like the second sketch equally, although it is evidentlyexecuted more in haste and is therefore deficient in certain details which can be easily supplied.

John Everett MILLAIS added: ‘This sketch is very beautiful in sentiment and careful in composition if the legs of the boy were continued downwards they would reach the bottom of the drawing – No.2- quite as good in its style’.

They illustrate the poem Captain Sword and Captain Pen by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), first published in 1835 and dedicated to Lord Brougham (1778-1868). More precisely they illustrate the second and third stanzas of Part IV of the poem: ‘On what took place on the field of Battle the Night after Victory’. Despite Captain Sword’s triumph of arms, the husband of one of the women in Peace is slain and finally Captain Sword ‘rusted apart’, leaving Captain Pen ‘To make a world of swordless men’. EJ/CB

WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT, O.M.(1827-1910) Fishing-Boats by Moonlight, c.1869.
Watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper, 10.1 ´ 15.2 cm, inscribed with mongram: WHH Accession No.:P.351

Holman Hunt’s output in watercolour was tiny compared with his work in oil. Between 1869 and 1903 he exhibited thirty-nine works at the R.W.S., which Martin HARDIE considers ‘comprise the greater part of his water-colour work’.

A leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt’s pictures The Light of the World and The Scapegoat must be as well known as any Victorian paintings. His watercolours differ from those of the other Pre-Raphaelite artists in only very rarely using body-colour (but see above); instead he worked in transparent colours on brilliant white paper, which produced an effect of radiant illumination and vivid sunlight. EJ