Dante and Beatrice (after Henry Holiday)
after Henry James Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927)
Category
Art / Prints
Date
1900 - 1999
Materials
Paper laid on canvas board
Measurements
384 x 555 mm
Order this imageCollection
575 Wandsworth Road, London
NT 1512056.1
Summary
Oleograph laid down on canvas board, Dante and Beatrice, after Henry Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927). The painting that this is a reproduction of was painted in 1882 - 1883 and exhibited at the Grosvenor Galleriers in 1884 and the Liverpool Autumn exhibition in the same year. It is a view of a Florentine street scene within a golden painted frame. Depicting three ladies meeting one gentleman on the corner of a bridge, with a canal and buildings behind. The original painting is in Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (3125; 142 x 203 cm) for which an extensive account is known of its creation: the artist painted a Head of Dante in 1875 from a cast taken by Thomas Woolner. He also did sketches, one of which is in the V&A (E 1376 - 1927) and others in Walker (WAG: 8965 & 8964). In July or early September 1881 he made his first drawings for the heads of Beatrice and Monna Vanna from Eleanor Butcher (sold Christie's 25 October 1988, lot 270) and Milly Hughes. In late September/October 1881 he went to Florence to make studies for the background and did a sketch from one end of the Ponte Santa Trinita looking toward the Ponte Vecchio along the Lungarno. In November 1881 he made a plaster statuette of the two principal figures nude (WAG 8982) and then draped them in dresses. He also made a clay model of the houses on the far side of the Arno and in December modelled a bust of Dante, influenced by the fresco in Bargello Museum attributed to Giotto and on the Torrigiani mask. Kitty (Laura) Lushington, Mrs L. J. Maxse was the model for the girl in blue (study: WAG 10366) and the Italian artist Gaetano Meo modelled for Dante although Holiday used Alfred Schultz-Curtius for his hands. Ellen Scott modelled for the woman leaning over the balcony. Pigeons added by J. T. Nettleship (1847- 1902) after its first exhibition in 1883.
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Khadambi Asalache (1935 - 2006); acquired fully in November 2010.
Makers and roles
after Henry James Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927), artist
References
Holiday 1914 Henry Holiday, Reminiscences of my Life, 1914 Baldry 1930 A. L. Baldry 'Henry Holiday', Walker's Quarterly, 1930