HENRIETTA RAE (BRITISH 1859-1928)SPRINGOil on canvasSigned and dated '1893' (lower right)126 x 62cm (49½ x 24¼ in.)Provenance: Frost and Reed Ltd., Bristol and London, 13th January 1938F.J. Fry, Leigh Woods, CliftonHenrietta Rae (1859-1928) was one of the leading painters of late Victorian England. After training at the Female School of Art and Heatherley's, she won a place at the Royal Academy Schools in 1877, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1880 to 1919. In 1884, Rae married fellow artist Ernest Normand, and from 1885 to 1893 they lived in a purpose-built artist's studio house on Holland Park Road, becoming part of the circle of artists that coalesced around their next-door-but-one neighbour, Frederic, Lord Leighton. Leighton offered friendly advice, and helped to steer her choice of classical subjects painted in the academic style, though her she also painted historicised and romantic subjects, as in the present work. Something of a celebrity, Rae was frequently profiled in the press, and in 1893, was the first woman to be appointed to the Hanging and Selection Committees of the Liverpool Art Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery. She was subsequently appointed as President of the Women's Art Section of the 1897 Victorian Era exhibition, Earl's Court, London, and in 1900, was the only woman among 24 artists commissioned to paint mural panels for the Royal Exchange, London. The present work is 'one of the several studies entitled Spring', according to Rae's biographer Arthur Fish, and is probably the Spring exhibited at the New Gallery in 1893, and the Dudley Corporation Art Gallery, Birmingham in September 1894.1 It is one of a group of paintings depicting full or half-length female figures in natural settings that Rae painted around this time, including Flowers Plucked and Cast Aside, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893, no. 439 (untraced, illustrated Fish opp. p. 66) and Apple Blossom (1892, private collection). A later version of Spring and its pendant Summer (private collection, c. 1900-2) were offered at Christie's New York on 1 November 2001, lot 66. In 1893, the year in which the present work was painted, Henrietta Rae was entering the peak years of her career. Although the birth of her first child slowed her output, she was represented with several works at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Eurydice sinking back to Hades (1887, untraced) was awarded a gold medal. In its palette and technique, Spring anticipates Rae's greatest painting, Psyche before the throne of Venus (1894, private collection, on long term loan to Tate), which was begun the same year, and exhibited 'on the line' at the 1894 Royal Academy exhibition, where was described by The Standard as 'the most ambitious and successful woman's work yet exhibited'. 1 Arthur Fish, Henrietta Rae (London: Cassell & Co, 1905), p. 76.We are grateful to Dr. Amy Lim for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry
A large oil painting by renowned artist Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) of Sir John Johnston, a Unionist politician and was connected to the linen trade in Lurgan. signed and dated, 1921. 127.5x193.5cm.
A large oil painting by renowned artist Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) of Sir John Johnston, a Unionist politician and was connected to the linen trade in Lurgan. signed and dated, 1921. 127.5x193.5cm.
A large oil painting by renowned artist Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) of Sir John Johnston, a Unionist politician and was connected to the linen trade in Lurgan. signed and dated, 1921. 127.5x193.5cm.
A large oil painting by renowned artist Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) of Sir John Johnston, a Unionist politician and was connected to the linen trade in Lurgan. signed and dated, 1921. 127.5x193.5cm.
Lot 200 Henrietta Rae British (1859-1928) Ellen Terry and Henry Irving in Abelard and Heloise, Lost Faith oil on canvas signed lower right 71 5/8 x 52 inches frame dimensions: 82 x 62 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches,large ornate carved gesso over wood frame, with scattered losses concentrated to corners Provenance: Property from the Collection of Seymour Stein Sotheby's, London, 15 July 2008, lot 41,Sotheby's, New York, 11 December 2003, lot 74,Christie's, London, June 23, 1989, lot 143
Lot 243 Henrietta Rae British (1859-1928) Ellen Terry and Henry Irving in Abelard and Heloise, Lost Faith oil on canvas signed lower right 71 5/8 x 52 inches frame dimensions: 82 x 62 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches,large ornate carved gesso over wood frame, with scattered losses concentrated to corners Provenance: Property from the Collection of Seymour Stein Sotheby's, London, 15 July 2008, lot 41,Sotheby's, New York, 11 December 2003, lot 74,Christie's, London, June 23, 1989, lot 143
Henrietta Rae (British, 1859-1928) Sketch for 'Psyche before the throne of Venus', circa 1892 Oil on canvas 18-1/2 x 30-1/2 inches (47.0 x 77.5 cm) Note this lot is sold as part of a bankruptcy. The IRS requires that we provide the buyer name to complete the transfer of title. PROVENANCE: Private collection; Sotheby's, London, July 15, 2015, lot 24; Acquired by the present owner from the above. EXHIBITED: Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumbria University, "Hidden Treasures, The Sena Collection," 2007, not numbered. This beautiful color study by Henrietta Rae, one of the foremost women painters of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, is a preliminary sketch in oil for her monumental Psyche before the throne of Venus (1894), the most ambitious mythological painting of the artist's career, which sold through Heritage Auctions on May 24, 2017, lot 66042. The large work was begun in 1892 and took two full years to complete. Henrietta Rae was married to fellow painter Ernest Normand, whose work is also represented in the current auction. HID01801242017
After Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) The Lady with The Lamp (Miss Nightingale at Scutari 1894) Cromolithograph, publ. Cassell & Company, ith. London 61 x 50 cm
HENRIETTA RAE 1859-1928 Songs of the Morning (1904) oil on canvas signed 'Henrietta Rae -' lower right 183.5 x 115.3 cm PROVENANCE Private Collection Sotheby's, London, 17 June 1986, lot 49, illustrated Private Collection, acquired from the above British & Irish Art, Sotheby's, London, 10 December 2014, lot 44, illustrated Mr John Schaeffer AO, Sydney, acquired from the above in January 2015 EXHIBITED Royal Academy, London, 1904, no. 391 Southport Art Gallery, 1907 Glasgow, 1909 LITERATURE Arthur Fish, Henrietta Rae (Mrs Ernest Normandi), Cassell and Company, London, 1905, p. 112
Henrietta Rae (British, 1859-1928) Psyche before the throne of Venus, 1894 Oil on canvas 76-1/2 x 120 inches (194.3 x 304.8 cm) Signed lower left: H. Rae PROPERTY OF A TEXAS MUSEUM PROVENANCE: The artist; George McCulloch (1848-1907), London, purchased in 1894 from the artist before it was exhibited at the Royal Academy; His sale, Christie, Manson, Wood, London, May 23, 1913, lot 86, cat. p. 29 (auction stencil verso); William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), San Simeon, California, acquired from the above; Sale: "Art Objects & Furnishings from the William Randolph Hearst Collection," presented by Saks Fifth Avenue in cooperation with Gimbel Brothers, under the direction of Hammer Galleries, New York, 1941, no. 50-187; Amon G. Carter (1879-1955), Fort Worth, Texas, purchased from the above in 1941; Fort Worth Club, Fort Worth, Texas, gift from the above; Edward Maddox, Fort Worth, Texas, purchased from the above; Gift from the above to the present owner, May 1969. EXHIBITED: Royal Academy Exhibition, London, 1894, no. 564; Doré Gallery, Liverpool, England, in "Exhibition of works by Mr. and Mrs. Normand," 1895; "McCulloch Collection of Modern Art," in Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1909, no. 156 (numbered in chalk on reverse of stretcher). LITERATURE: Royal Academy Pictures 1894, London, p. v (Notes), p. 13 illustrated; A. Fish, Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand), London, 1905, pp. 73-85, p. 75 illustrated; Art Objects & Furnishings from the William Randolph Hearst Collection. Catalogue raisonné comprising illustrations of representative works together with comprehensive descriptions... Presented by Saks Fifth Avenue in cooperation with Gimbel Brothers, under the direction of Hammer Galleries, New York, 1941, (under English Paintings) p. 279, no. 50-187; M. Clarke, Critical Voices. Women and Art Criticism in Britain 1880-1905, Ashgate, p. 98-9, p. 99 illustrated. Psyche before the throne of Venus (1894) is the most ambitious mythological painting produced by Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand), one of the foremost women painters of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The present auction is the first time in 76 years that the painting has been available for public sale. Featuring fourteen full-length figures, and an exquisitely expansive landscape filled both with architectural and natural elements, Psyche before the throne of Venus took two years to complete. Rae began the work in 1892, and was both encouraged and criticized by her neighbor, painter Frederic, Lord Leighton, as well as by William Blake Richmond, who generously lent her his studio in which to paint it since hers was not large enough. While the painting was underway, Rae and her painter-husband Ernest Normand moved to a more spacious studio at Norwood in south London (perhaps also to get some distance from the neighbors), and there constructed a "glass house" specifically to accommodate Psyche's 10 foot by 6 foot dimensions. In the "glass house," a recent innovation that flooded the studio with light and enabled the artist to achieve high-keyed effects similar to French Impressionist plein-air painting, Rae finished Psyche. Such a commitment to this painting was a clear indication of its importance to Henrietta Rae, who in 1894 was at the height of her powers as the most prominent woman artist in the classical revival that dominated Britain at the end of the 19th century, and as the most important female painter of the nude in the pre-modern period. Rae's biographer Arthur Fish, writing in 1905 during the artist's lifetime and with her cooperation, noted that in many regards Psyche "was the most important work of Mrs. Normand's life." Psyche before the throne of Venus represents a passage in William Morris's version of the nymph's story ("The Earthly Paradise: Story of Cupid and Psyche") that necessitated a cast of more than a dozen figures which Rae seems to have relished painting in a rich variety of elegant nude and semi-draped poses. As Fish wrote (pp. 80-1): "Mrs. Normand chose the prettiest of the myths for treatment. The story of Cupid and Psyche-with its beauty, pathos, and drama-is always fascinating...Psyche with many sufferings has searched in vain for her love, and had come by evil chance upon the Court of Venus. Hidden by the trees she watches the maidens of the Court at their sports when--- "from her lips unwitting came a moan, She felt strong arms about her body thrown And, blind with fear, was haled along till she Saw floating by her faint eyes dizzily That vision of the pearls and roses fresh, The golden carpet and the rosy flesh. Then, as in vain she strove to make some sound, A sweet voice seemed to piece the air around With bitter words; her doom rang in her ears, She felt the misery that lacketh tears. 'Come hither, damsels, and the pearl behold That hath no price. See now the thrice-tried gold That all men worshipped, that a god would have To be his bride! How like a wretched slave She cowers down, and lacketh even voice To plead her cause!'" At its inaugural exhibition-London's Royal Academy exhibition of 1894-Psyche was awarded a "center" [displayed on the coveted centerline rather than high on the wall beyond eye-level] and was one of the featured works of the exhibition. Appreciations of Rae's triumph quickly appeared in the press. H.H. Spielman, writing for the Magazine of Art, effused, but not without sprinkling little daubs of chauvinism here and there, as was typical of the period, in spite of his admiration for her achievement: "Miss Henrietta Rae [she painted under her maiden name] contributes a large canvas of 'Psyche before the Throne of Venus' which is very remarkable in its conception and execution. This elaborate composition, full without being crowded, graceful in the drawing of its figures, dainty in its appreciation of feminine beauty, delicate in its tones and tints, is a work we hardly expected from a woman. But we instinctively feel that the painter has never quite grasped the greatness of this scene of classic mythology-the figures, with all their charm, are not inhabitants of Olympos, but denizens of an ungodly earth." Indeed, although as a second-generation Victorian woman artist, Rae enjoyed, unlike her predecessors, access to Royal Academy Schools, and through her ambition was able to secure a solid reputation as a contemporary artist capable of making a living selling her work, she routinely had to contend with critical carping stemming from the fact she was a woman painter. Just before the Academy's 1894 exhibit opened, in fact, Rae's ebullient spirits about her monumental Psyche had been dampened by none other than Lord Leighton, Rae's former neighbor who was then President of the Royal Academy. Having lost sight of Psyche following its removal from his neighborhood before it was finished, Leighton, who worked in a vein very similar to Rae, had an unusually keen interest in examining it before the Academy show opened. Rae confided to her biographer Arthur Fish that despite Leighton's many praises of Psyche, his ultimate criticism was "that it had a tendency to prettiness of which he could not approve." Of course, this was an instance of "the pot calling the kettle black," since Leighton's own work could be said to suffer from the same affliction. Fortunately for Rae, within moments of this critical flattening by Leighton, one of the most significant collectors of contemporary British painting, Scottish mining engineer George McCulloch, appeared in front of Psyche. He had seen it once before, in progress, and had practically purchased it then. Now, seeing it in its completed state, he was enraptured, and asked the artist what the President of the Royal Academy had just said about her picture. Still reeling from disappointment, Rae recounted Leighton's comments. McCulloch immediately purchased the painting for the impressive sum of £1,000 plus £200 for the copyright. He also engaged the firm of Arthur Tooth & Sons to publish a large photogravure of the painting, which served to make it more widely known. Celebrity collectors Rae's Psyche before the throne of Venus has had six owners during its 123-year history, and the first three could easily be classified as "celebrity collectors." The aforementioned George McCulloch was a voracious collector of top examples of British painting, which he had been able to afford through his lucrative mining interests in Australia. Following his death, in 1913, his collection was sold through Christie's in London, where it attracted worldwide attention owing to its quality. An even more rapacious collector--the American newspaperman and master of "yellow journalism" William Randolph Hearst--bought it from McCulloch's sale and shipped it back to the United States. He owned it for 28 years, until he was forced to sell it together a large portion of his collection to pay off creditors in 1941. Just where he exhibited the work remains unclear, though it would have been fitting for his castle at San Simeon. Psyche's setting bears a rather uncanny resemblance to the magnificent outdoor pool area there. When Hearst sold Psyche with the assistance of Hammer Galleries in New York in 1941, it was through retail settings at Gimbel Brothers and Saks Fifth Avenue department stores rather than auction. Amon G. Carter of Fort Worth, Texas purchased Psyche from the Hearst sale. Whether this noted collector of American art ever kept the work in his own collection--particularly given his avoidance of nudes in art in his eponymous museum--is unknown. However, he donated the work to the Fort Worth Club, where it was displayed into the 1960s. As scholar Margaret Clarke has recently noted, Rae was an established artist who was nonetheless navigating a culture that was still fraught with profound challenges from entrenched chauvinism. She notes that Rae's choice to feature the female nude was an artistic power strategy, since the female nude was the non plus ultra of academic painting. Rae herself recorded an episode that provides a perfect summary of the trials of her time as well as her own resilience: "The men who used to come in [to my studio] used to make me feel as though I could not do anything. There was one in particular who used to find very great fault and upon one occasion he surpassed himself by walking up to one of my pictures just finished and saying that the background was not dark enough to show up the flesh tints. "You should have cobalt blue close against it," said he, and with that he dipped his large thumb into the cobalt blue and drew a great line with it all round the edge of my beautiful figure that I had to clear out again the next day." When asked if she was furious she replied, "Oh! I should think I was, but could not say anything, because he was a great man or thought he was and was being so kind, or pretending to be, but I will tell you what I did. I put his new hat in the stove, by accident of course." A preparatory oil sketch for Psyche before the throne of Venus was sold through Sotheby's London, July 15, 2015. HID04901242017 Please see updated provenance on this lot. We are grateful to Mary L. Levkoff, Museum Director of the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, and to Victoria Kastner, official historian of Hearst Castle, for their kind assistance in sorting out the Hearst provenance for Henrietta Rae's painting. We are also grateful to Dr. Catherine Larkin, Associate Professor at Long Island University, for her generous assistance in providing scans of the documentation from Hearst’s files recording the purchase of the Henrietta Rae painting from the McCulloch sale, and from Knoedler Gallery. Copies of these files will be provided to the successful bidder of the painting.
HENRIETTA RAE (BRITISH 1859-1928) PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN, 1917. Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right 'Henrietta Rae, 1917;' Frame: 41.50" x 35.50" 34" x 27.50"
Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand) (1859-1928) A bacchante signed and indistinctly dated 'H Rae/1885' (lower left) oil on canvas 50 x 25 in. (127 x 63.5 cm.)
Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand) (1859-1928) A bacchante signed and indistinctly dated 'H Rae/1885' (lower left) oil on canvas 50 x 25 in. (127 x 63.5 cm.)
Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand) (1859-1928) A bacchante signed and indistinctly dated 'H Rae/1885' (lower left) oil on canvas 50 x 25 in. (127 x 63.5 cm.)
Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand) (1859-1928) A bacchante signed and indistinctly dated 'H Rae 1885' (lower left) oil on canvas 50 x 25 in. (127 x 63.5 cm.)
Henrietta Rae SWA 1859-1928- Three young girls seated by a classical river landscape, traditionally held to be the Tennant sisters; possibly posing as the Three Graces; oil on canvas, 71x92cm Note: Henrietta Rae born in London, studied at the Queen Square School of Art, and at Heatherley's School of Art and in the British Museum antique galleries. After enormous persistence (6 or 7 attempts) she was able to enter the Royal Academy Schools, and won a seven year Royal Academy scholarship. Exhibiting every year at the Royal Academy from 1881. She married the orientalist and historical painter Ernest Normand in 1884, and they shared a studio in Holland Park Road. They were close friends of George Frederick Watts and Frederick Leighton, being especially influenced by Leighton. Rae had a large portrait practice in Northern Ireland, as she regularly visited Belfast.
A Bacchante signed and indistinctly dated 'H Rae 1885' (lower left) oil on canvas 50 x 25 in. (127 x 63.5 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Christie's South Kensington, 19 January 1983, lot 235 (œ500). Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 17 June 1987, lot 217 (œ5,500). Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 1 December 1989, lot 1077 (unsold). Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 22 March 2000, lot 304, when acquired by the present owner. LITERATURE A. Fish, Henrietta Rae, London, 1905, p. 35. A. Smith, The Victorian Nude, Sexuality, Morality and Art, Manchester, 1996, pp. 192, 232, pl. 62. EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1885, no. 623. Victorian Parnassus, 1987, no. 32. NOTES Rae's work embraced portraits, landscapes, literary subjects and eighteenth-century genre scenes in the style of Marcus Stone, but she saw herself primarily as a painter of classical themes, often carried out on a considerable scale and generally with a strong emphasis on the female nude. She was to tenaciously maintain this essentially Victorian tradition well into the twentieth century. A bacchante is a follower or an assistant to Bacchus, the god of wine. In Greece the cult seems to have had a particular attraction for women, however the usual representation is of a woman clothed with swirling drapery, her figure expressing physical abandonment as she beats a tambourine. It is usually Bacchus who is naked wearing a crown of vine leaves and grapes and he normally holds the Thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine cone and an ancient symbol of fertility that is sometimes twined with ivy. Rae has made a bold foray into the masculine domain of high art with a nude study such as the present work. It is also interesting that she has given this female bacchante all the normal attributes associated with the male god; she has the Thyrsus, a crown of vine leaves and she is picking grapes. She also stands on an animal skin, the sacrifice of which was an essential part of the ceremony. The youngest of seven children, Henrietta Rae was born in Hammersmith and brought up in Holloway. Her father was civil servant with literary and theatrical interests, her mother a musician who had studied under Mendelssohn. In 1874, when she was fifteen, she entered Heatherley's School of Art in Newman Street. She was the School's first female student, and her fellow pupils included Solomon J. Solomon, Edmund Blair Leighton and T.C. Gotch. Three years later she graduated to the Royal Academy Schools, where among her contemporaries were Margaret Dicksee, Arthur Hacker, Stanhope Forbes, Henry La Thangue, Ernest Normand, Solomon J. Solomon again, and the sculptor Alfred Gilbert. Her teachers included the veteran W.P. Frith, Frank Dicksee, the elder brother of her friend Margaret, Hubert von Herkomer, and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who influenced her work strongly for a time. She began to exhibit in 1879, showing a small landscape at the Society of British Artists. The following year she sent work to the Dudley Gallery, and in 1881 she made her debut at the Royal Academy with a portrait, Mrs Warman . The RA remained her principal place of exhibition for thirty-eight years, although she also supported the Grosvenor Gallery, the New gallery, the Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours, and other bodies. In 1884 Rae married her fellow RA student Ernest Normand, and the following year they joined the artistic community, dominated by Sir Frederic Leighton, G.F. Watts and other luminaries, in the Holland Park area of Kensington. Leighton, who of course was President of the RA and embodied the Victorian art establishment, became the couple's hero. He took a personal interest in their progress, profoundly influenced their treatment of classical subjects, and ensured that, like him, they contributed to the murals executed for the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Rae's painting, The Charities of Sir Richard Whittington, was eventually completed in 1900. During these years Rae enjoyed considerable success, her Eurydice had won medals in international exhibitions in Paris and Chicago, while Ophelia was bought for the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1890. However, that year both Rae and her husband suffered a crisis of confidence when their pictures were hung badly at the Royal Academy and they decided to go to Paris to seek further instruction. They studied at the Acad‚mie Julian in Paris under Benjamin Constant and Jules LefŠvre. They then went on to spend some weeks painting en plein air at Grez, the village near Barbizon which had been an inspirational centre for young artists of all nationalities since the early 1870s. Upon her return to London, Leighton was not complimentary about her stylistic development that had become more 'impressionistic' under the influence of the masters in Paris and Grez. In 1892, they therefore decided to leave the rather claustrophobic world of Holland Park and moved to Norwood in south-east London. In 1893 she was considered to be of sufficient stature to serve on the Hanging Committee at the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition, the first time a woman had achieved the distinction at a major public exhibition. Meanwhile, Rae completed a vast work entitled Psyche before the Throne of Venus which was exhibited at the RA in 1894 and bought by the wealthy mining engineer George McCulloch. The success of this classical subject spurred her on to return to her favourite genre. Another substantial classical subject from her later career was Hylas and the Water Nymphs which was exhibited in 1910 and sold in these Rooms on 30 November 2000, lot 19 (œ520,000). It epitomised her style with it classical theme, ambitious scale, emphasis on the female nude and stylistic synthesis between academic form and 'impressionistic' handling.
The Garland signed 'H. Rae.' (lower left) oil on canvas 15 1/8 x 131/4 in. (38.4 x 33.6 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 12 April 1989, lot 19, when acquired by the present owner. LITERATURE A. Remer, Pioneering Spirits: The Lives and Times of Remarkable Women Artists in Western History, Worcester, Massachusetts, pl. 4.19. EXHIBITION Ladies of the Brush, 1994-5, no. 26. London, Leighton House, Artists at Home: The Holland Park Circle, 1850-1900, 1999-2000, no. 47. NOTES This picture is also known as 'Passiflora', from the passion flowers that adorn the idealized Greek beauty around her neck. Henrietta Rae shared a studio with her husband Ernest Normand, whom she met at the Royal Academy Schools, at 3, The Studios, Holland Park Road. Leighton was a neighbour, and gave frequent advice. Rae later recalled 'His criticisms, though severe, and at times almost scathing, always left me with the feeling that he expected me some day to do good work'. Rae was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy and started her career with the distinction of being the first woman to be admitted to Heatherley's School of Art. For biographical details on this artist please refer to lot 286 in this sale.
Spring; and Summer both signed 'H Rae', one (lower right) and the other (lower left) oil on canvas 68 x 36 in. (172.7 x 91.4 cm.) a pair EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1896, no. 678. London, New Gallery, Summer Exhibition, 1903, no. 230 [Summer]; no. 240 [Spring].
