A Bishop (study after the ‘Paradiso’ by Fra Angelico)

Details

Date: 1912
Dimensions: 27.5 x 37.5
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W158
Artist: Sloane, Mary Annie (10.12.1867 - 30.11.1961)
Sitter: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Mary Annie Sloane bequest, 1962

The artist was a close friend of May Morris with whom she travelled to Florence and Majorca, and of whom she drew several pencil portraits now in the WMG collection. (D277 and D278a-c). A related watercolour, William Morris’s Bedroom at Kelmscott Manor, is also in the Gallery’s collection (W158) and was also part of the Sloane Bequest. Both W157 and W158 are probably identifiable with two watercolours of ‘Rooms at Kelmscott’ which appeared as lot 329 in the catalogue of the sale of effects at Kelmscott Manor in 1939 after May Morris’s death, when they were bought back by Miss Sloane.

A letter from May Morris to John Quinn (Easter Monday 1912) states ‘I have a guest, who is painting just now, my colleague on the Women’s Guild of Arts. She is doing for me a picture of Father’s bedroom, and another of this room [Tapestry Room] with me half in the picture, at work – her idea – , and if I like them well enough they are going to you. Indeed they were to be done for your birthday, but may not be ready. I wanted to do them myself, dear, but there is no time, and besides mine would have been but clumsy things.’ A second letter to Quinn (25 April 1912) adds ‘I am sorry Miss Sloane’s Kelmscott drawings were not finished in time to send. I hope you’ll like them when they come. They are really rather charming. She is distinguished artist in her line, and a pleasant-house-mate, quiet and serene and contained.’
See ‘On Poetry, Painting and Politics’, ed Janis Londraville,1997, pp.110 and 112.

Details

Date: 1912
Dimensions: 23 x 28.5
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W157
Artist: Sloane, Mary Annie (10.12.1867 - 30.11.1961)
Credit notes: Miss M A Sloane bequest, 1962

The artist was a close friend of May Morris with whom she travelled to Florence and Majorca, and of whom she drew several pencil portraits now in the WMG collection. (D277 and D278a-c). A related watercolour, May Morris in the Tapestry Room at Kelmscott Manor (exhibited at the Royal Academy 1915 (1037), is also in the Gallery’s collection (W158) and was also part of the Sloane Bequest. Both W157 and W158 are probably identifiable with two watercolours of ‘Rooms at Kelmscott’ which appeared as lot 329 in the catalogue of the sale of effects at Kelmscott Manor in 1939 after May Morris’s death, when they were bought back by Miss Sloane.
A letter from May Morris to John Quinn (Easter Monday 1912) states ‘I have a guest, who is painting just now, my colleague on the Women’s Guild of Arts. She is doing for me a picture of Father’s bedroom, and another of this room [Tapestry Room] with me half in the picture, at work – her idea – , and if I like them well enough they are going to you. Indeed they were to be done for your birthday, but may not be ready. I wanted to do them myself, dear, but there is no time, and besides mine would have been but clumsy things.’ A second letter to Quinn (25 April 1912) adds ‘I am sorry Miss Sloane’s Kelmscott drawings were not finished in time to send. I hope you’ll like them when they come. They are really rather charming. She is distinguished artist in her line, and a pleasant-house-mate, quiet and serene and contained.’See ‘On Poetry, Painting and Politics’, ed Janis Londraville,1997, pp.110 and 112.

Details

Date: c.1911
Dimensions: 27 x 21
Object Type: watercolour
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W155
Artist: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1961

The mounted figure in this watercolour by Frank Brangwyn is very close to a similar figure (in reverse) in the centre of a procession in the print ‘Return from a Raid’ (Retour d’un Razzia), etching on copper 12 x 13 3/4 in. 30.4 x 35 cm. executed in 1910 (Gaunt: Etchings of Brangwyn. 170). According to Gaunt the plate was etched from a group of Nativity figures set up on a balcony at Mola (Italy) arranged against the background hills. However, the inscription below this watercolour specifically refers to Taormina, Sicily, where it is known that Brangwyn made at least two watercolours of the same title in 1911. One of these, illustrated in Frank Brangwyn – His Work (2 illustrative folios published by E. d’Alignan and P. Turpin) pl. 37, shows a procession of mounted figures and foot men but differently arranged from W155 and from the etching.

Details

Date: 1870
Dimensions: 94 x 61
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W142
Artist: Brown, Ford Madox, 1821, 1893
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1958

This watercolour is based on a scene from Byron’s play ‘Two Foscari’ (1847-55). Set in fifteenth-century Venice, Foscari, the Doge’s son, has been imprisoned for murder, and is saying farewell to his wife Marina. The layers of pigment have been built up to give the effect of an oil painting. Ford Madox Brown originally designed this as an engraved illustration to Moxon’s edition of ‘The Poetical Works of Lord Byron’ (1870). During his career he painted a dozen scenes from Byron’s work, often changing the scale or medium.

Object Type: watercolour

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