The Gentle Music of a Bygone Day
John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope (Cannon Hall 1829 - Florence 1908)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1873 (dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
970 x 1190 mm
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1288981
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, 'The Gentle Music of a Bygone Day' by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (Cannon Hall 1829 - Florence 1908), inscribed on frame, bottom centre: 'The Gentle Music of a Bygone Day and with the name of the artist and dated on: 1873. The title is inspired from a quotation from William Morris's 'The Earthly Paradise': Oh, friends, content you! this is much indeed, And we are paid, thus garnering for our need Your blessings only, bringing in their train God's blessings as the south wind brings the rain. And for the rest, no little thing shall be (Since ye through all yet keep your memory) The gentle music of the bygone years, Long past to us with all their hopes and fears." Two female figures in a pastoral idealised landscape with hills, trees, river, bridge, one standing, leaning against a tree, on the left, playing a stringed instrument (lute), and the other, singing whilst seated on a fallen tree trunk with music book on her lap.
Provenance
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Cannon Hall, Barnsley; bought by National Trust from Mrs Phyllis Pilkington, née Pickering (the niece of Evelyn de Morgan, née Pickering); displayed at Lanhydrock until 1998 when they were transferred to Wightwick Manor.
Makers and roles
John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope (Cannon Hall 1829 - Florence 1908), publisher
Exhibition history
Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance, Musei di San Domenico, Forlì, Italy, 2024