St Agnes' Eve
Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1853 - 1860
Materials
Gouache on paper
Measurements
165 x 120 mm
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1287906
Summary
Gouache on paper, St Agnes' Eve by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862), 1850s. Inscription on back of frame: 'By Lizzie Rossetti-St Agnes' Eve, from Tennyson'. St Agnes stands at a window; a crucifix is visible through the chapel door at the left. Wide giltwood mount, glazed in tainted giltwood frame.
Full description
The poet and sister in law of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Christina Rossetti, a devoutly religious woman, selected this as her favourite of Siddal's work and after her brother’s death and chose to hang it on her walls. On the Eve of St Agnes' feast day, a nun in training contemplates her vows and waits to see her bridegroom, Christ. In folklore, girls who performed rituals on this day would see their future husband in a dream. St Agnes, the patron saint of chastity, refused to marry, stating that Christ was her husband. Siddal engages with Victorian ideals of the gendered spheres- the feminine private sphere, the nun cloistered in a room, observing the masculine public sphere.The subject of the picture is a religious woman devoting her life to Christ. The nun longingly gazes out over snow covered roofs (the feast day of St Agnes falls in January), while below, a door opens into a chapel with altar and crucifix. Although the mid-Victorian age promoted religious devotion for young women as a ladylike pursuit, there was debate over the nun’s cloistered existence, which was going against daughterly duty. Several drawings exist for this watercolour; St Agnes fills much more of the canvas in this watercolour than her figure does in the drawings. Also, though the pose of St Agnes is very similar, in the watercolour her head faces more prominently upwards, suggesting heavenly thoughts. Based on Tennyson's poem, St Agnes' Eve, this extract directly inspired the artwork: Deep on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapour goes; May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies,’ ‘For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin.'
Provenance
William Michael Rossetti (1829 – 1919); thence by descent to his daughter, Helen Maria Rossetti, Mrs Gastone Angeli (1879 - 1969) and her daughter Imogene Angeli, Mrs Dennis (d. 1993); on loan to Wightwick Manor and purchased from her son in 1997 with the help of the Art Fund
Marks and inscriptions
Hand written description with Mrs Angeli's address.
Makers and roles
Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Eleanor Siddal, Mrs Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Holborn 1829 – Chatham Place, London 1862), artist