Dante and Beatrice
after Henry James Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927)
Category
Art / Prints
Date
1900 - 1999
Materials
Paper
Measurements
360 x 550 mm
Order this imageCollection
Borrowdale, Cumbria
NT 622451
Summary
Print, coloured engraving on paper, Dante and Beatrice, after Henry James Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927). It depicts an episode in the love affair between Dante, the early Renaissance poet, and Beatrice. Dante, waiting on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, sees his beloved walking on the banks of the River Arno with two companions, but she rejects his greeting.The original painting, begun in 1882, exhibited unfinished at the Grosvenor Gallery in April 1883 and finished by the Liverpool Autumn exhibition, September 1884, when it was bought from the artist by the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (3125) for which an extensive account is known of its creation: the artist painted at 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) and a watercolour drawing exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle 1878 ( 72), possibly related. 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. The pigeons were added by J. T. Nettleship (1847- 1902) after its first exhibition in 1883.
Makers and roles
after Henry James Holiday (London 1839 - London 1927), artist