Friday, January 11, 2013
The Day Dream
The Day Dream
Oil on canvas
Victoria and Albert Museum
1880
The thronged boughs of the shady sycamore
Still bear young leaflets half the summer through;
From when the robin 'gainst the unhidden blue
Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core,
The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar
Through summer silence. Still the leaves come new;
Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew
Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.
Within the branching shade of Reverie
Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be
Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.
Lo! tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look,
She dreams; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.
Just love this sonnet
Mnemosyne 1876
A much better copy
The drawing remained in Rossetti’s studio until his death and was in a private collection ever since.
The Flower Garden
MAY MORRIS FOR MORRIS & CO.
'THE FLOWER GARDEN': A RARE PORTIÈRE
embroidered silk, bearing the inscription, 'Lo silken my garden & silken my sky and silken
the. apple. bough hanging on high'
259cm. high by 132cm. wide;
8ft 6in., 4ft 4in.1890s
ESTIMATE 8,000-12,000 GBP
Lot Sold: 19,375 GBP
Linda Parry, William Morris Textiles, London, 1983, p. 32
This piece belongs to a group of hangings produced by May Morris and her embroiderers titled 'The Flower Garden' or alternatively 'Fruit Garden'. There are a number of versions of the design which feature the same floral decoration but
with differing inscriptions. All are taken from William Morris's poem 'The Flowering Orchard' which was published in 1891, after he had exhibited a 'Flower Garden' embroidery at the Arts and Crafts exhibition in 1890.
Other versions were produced by Morris & Co. between 1892 and 1896 and the design was also available as a kit to embroider at home. One example was ordered by Mrs Theodosia Middlemore (now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London) and another by Mrs Barr-Smith of Adelaide. Further examples are in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. The kits cost £9 in 1896 whereas completed examples, made under May Morris's supervision at her house in Hammermsith Terrace, cost £96.10s.
We are grateful to Linda Parry for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.
A figure cut out of a missal
“A figure cut out of a missal—out of one of Rossetti’s or Hunt’s pictures—to say this gives a faint idea of her, because when such an image puts on flesh and blood, it is an apparition of fearful and wonderful intensity. It’s hard to say whether she’s a grand synthesis of all the Pre-Raphaelite pictures ever made—or they are a “keen analysis” of her—whether she’s an original or a copy. In either case she is a wonder. Imagine a tall lean woman in a long dress of some dead purple stuff, guiltless of hoops (or of anything else I should say), with a maze of crisp black hair, heaped in a great wavy projections on each of her temples, a thin pale face, great thick black oblique brows, joined in the middle and tucking themselves away under her hair, a mouth like the “Oriana” in our illustrated Tennyson, a long neck, without any collar, and in lieu thereof some dozen strings of outlandish beads. In fine complete.”
— Henry James in a letter to his sister, Alice
— Henry James in a letter to his sister, Alice
Monday, January 7, 2013
The Day Dream
The Day Dream
Oil on canvas
Victoria and Albert Museum
1880
The thronged boughs of the shady sycamore
Still bear young leaflets half the summer through;
From when the robin 'gainst the unhidden blue
Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core,
The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar
Through summer silence. Still the leaves come new;
Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew
Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.
Within the branching shade of Reverie
Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be
Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.
Lo! tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look,
She dreams; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.
Just love this sonnet
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