A Portrait

Details

Object Type: oil
Catalogue number: BrO16
Artist: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1935

Study for the ninth panel in a series of 11 large oil panels representing important events in the history of the Skinners’ Guild. Brangwyn executed this commission for the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Skinners, London between 1902-1909. The picture as finally painted (illustrated in Herbert Furst, The Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, 1924, p.72) shows a somewhat different composition. The two men in ceremonial robes and their page remain as in the sketch but the background was changed to show Officers of the Guild on the staircase and balcony and figures of pages, some bearing baskets of fruit, were added in the foreground left, behind whom the aged figure of General Monk is seen ascending the stairs.

Details

Date: 1895
Dimensions: 188.5 x 143.5
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: BrO10
Artist: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1935

Also known as ‘The Pipes of Pan’ and ‘Orpheus and his lute’, this panel is one of only two remaining sections of a decorative scheme commissioned by Siegfried Bing in 1895 for the exterior of his Galerie L’Art Nouveau, 22 rue de Provence, Paris. The complete scheme comprised a decorative frieze on the exterior of the building showing eastern potters at work and oriental figures talking and playing pipes. ‘Music’ and its companion piece ‘Dancing’ were displayed just inside the main entrance of the building. ‘Dancing’ shows two semi-nude figures in a landscape dancing to the music of panpipes being played by a boy.

Both panels were illustrated in J. S. Little’s article in The Studio (1897), from which it would appear that ‘Music’ was originally much larger and has been cut down on all sides. It is possible that this was done when the painting was in the collection of M. Agache, who acquired both ‘Music’ and ‘Dancing’ and the decorative frieze when these were removed from Bing’s gallery around 1905. It is more likely however that Brangywn himself cut the panel down when he later re-acquired it, at which time he also added his initials.

Object Type: oil

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