Frieze for the Drawing Room at Pownall Hall, Wilmslow, Cheshire

Details

Date: 1900
Dimensions: 153 x 92
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: O110
Artist: Crane, Walter, 1845, 1915
Credit notes: Transfer, 1964

The painting was done at the time of the Boer War of 1900 of which Crane was a bitter opponent, and when the Fabians failed to oppose the war, Crane along with other members including Ramsay Macdonald resigned from the Fabian Society. The alternative title, A Stranger, was intended to symbolise the estrangement of peace from the world. A similar figure, presenting olive branches to two wounded combatants, appears in Crane’s cartoon to commemorate the ending of the Boer War, published in the Daily News, 2 June 1902.

Details

Date: c. 1881
Dimensions: 49 x 39
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: O87
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

The image was based on a stained glass panel that Burne-Jones designed in 1878, one of a set of nine representing the Planets. Formerly depicting a full-length nude seated on a rock, in 1958 the canvas was cut down to its present size. The discarded canvas was not kept nor was a photographic record taken of the painting in its original state.

The stained glass was made by Morris & Co for the music room at ‘Woodlands’, the home of Sir Angus Holden situated on the outskirts of Bradford, Yorkshire. The stained glass no longer survives but the cartoons, including ‘The Evening Star’, are now at Torre Abbey, Torquay, Devon.

Details

Date: c.1830-56
Dimensions: 18.6 x 12.5
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on card
Catalogue number: BrO81
Artist: Chasseriau, Theodore, 1819, 1856
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1948

Small oil sketch on board of two young women dressed in Empire-line dresses. It was painted by the Dominican-born French Romantic painter Theodore Chasseriau.

Details

Date: 1863
Dimensions: 36.2 x 51.4
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: BrO53
Artist: Scott, William Bell, 1811, 1890
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1938

This painting shows a rock-strewn beach on the north-east coast of England. The rather melancholy character of the scene is emphasised by the carcass of a dead sea bird in the foreground and the ghostly silhouettes of two sailing ships in the distance. Son of Robert Scott, an Edinburgh engraver, and brother of the historical painter David Scott, William Bell Scott studied under his father and at Trustee’ Academy before moving to London in 1837. In 1843 he was appointed master of the Government School of Design in Newcastle, where his influence did much to popularise the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. The painting is one of several empty seascape scenes by Scott, dating from the 1860s including ‘The Incoming Tide’ (1861) , ‘North Sea by Moonlight’ (1863) and ‘Breakers on a Beach’ (1864). This painting, with its carefully delineated foreground detail of rocks, pebbles and seaweed, illustrates fully the impact of Pre-Raphaelitism on Scott’s work. The art historian Allen Staley however argues that the twilight, the emptiness of the composition and the overall lack of subject matter show the influence of German Romantic artists such as Caspar David Friedrich. Scott was the author of books on Durer and on modern German painting in the 1870s. He was also a poet and his ‘Autobiographical Notes’ provide an interesting record of his friendship with Rosetti, Morris and other artists.

Details

Date: c. 1912
Dimensions: 23.5 x 18
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on wood
Catalogue number: BrO38
Artist: Jamieson, Alexander, 1873, 1937
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1940

Alexander Jamieson (1873-1937) was born in Glasgow, and trained at the Haldane Academy, now part of the Glasgow School of Art. In 1898 Jamieson won a scholarship to spend a year in Paris. Here Jamieson was exposed to the work of the Impressionists, many of whom he met. The young artist adopted their techniques which he was to employ throughout his career. Jamieson preferred to paint en plein air, working wet-into-wet with bold brushstrokes. This small oil sketch depicts a statue of the Roman goddess Flora in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, France.

Details

Date: 1873
Dimensions: 16 x 58.3
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on wood
Catalogue number: O93
Artist: Alma-Tadema, Lawrence, Sir, 1836, 1912
Credit notes: Cecil French bequest, 1954

‘The Dinner’, also known as ‘A Roman Banquet’ was commissioned from the artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema by the art dealer Ernest Gambart. The painting is one of a set of three, the other two being ‘Greek Wine’ (1872) and ‘The Siesta’ (1873). Originally the pictures were planned to be of a much larger size, but as no client was interested, they were executed in a smaller format.
Alma-Tadema frequently painted the theme of Romans dining, including four paintings using the same figure of the elderly man which date from 1872-1880, and a watercolour, ‘The Batchelor’ (1879). A later revised version of this painting, ‘The First Course: The Dinner’, was painted in 1880 (location unknown). A similar subject also appears in ‘Between Hope and Fear’ (1876), private collection.

Details

Date: c.1820-1830
Object Type: oil
Catalogue number: BrO31
Artist: Etty, William, Sir, 1787, 1849
Credit notes: Gift of Frank Brangwyn, 1938

William Etty was the first significant British painter of nudes and still lifes. As a consequence he acquired a reputation for indecency. Despite this, he became commercially successful and critically acclaimed. In 1828 he was elected a Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. Throughout his life he continued to study the human form at life drawing classes, a practice considered inappropriate by established artists of the day.
This painting was acquired for the Gallery by the artist Frank Brangwyn.

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.

Details

The Earthly Paradise is an epic poem structured as a frame story, composed of a number of different narratives. Morris published the first volume of The Earthly Paradise in 1868 after a ten year break from publishing following a poor reception to his earlier written work ‘The Defence of Guenevere’ in 1857. Despite this, the first volume of The Earthly Paradise was a great success and Morris went on to publish further volumes until 1870. This Kelmscott Press edition is the first in an eight-volume set held at the William Morris Gallery.

In Morris’s poem, a group of Norsemen flee a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise, where they will never grow old. However, their search is unfruitful and they become ‘shrivelled, bent, and grey’ during their lengthy quest. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay there and each month, the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. The poem lasts a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative, Morris draws both upon Greek myths and medieval romance tales, including Icelandic sagas.

The Earthly Paradise helped to forge Morris’s reputation as a poet. In fact all of his subsequent books were sold as “by the author of The Earthly Paradise”. Today we might think of William Morris primarily as a designer, but during his lifetime he was known best as a writer.

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