Property from a German Private Collection John Roddam Spencer Stanhope British 1829 - 1908 Cephalus and Procris titled, signed and inscribed with the artist's address Procris & Cephalus / By R. Spencer Stanhope / 77. Harley Street / Cavendish Square on an old label attached to the reverse oil on canvas Unframed: 96 by 167 cm., 38 by 66in. Framed: 127 by 200cm., 50 by 78¾in.
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE (1829-1908) Age and beauty watercolour and bodycolour heightened with gum arabic and with scratching out on board 14 1/2 x 21 3/8 in. (36.8 x 54.3 cm.)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (British, 1829-1908) The Vision of Ezekiel: The Valley of Dry Bones signed and inscribed 'R. Spencer Stanhope/Florence' (on the backboard) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, on two joined sheets of paper 152.4 x 100.8cm (60 x 39 11/16in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE (1829-1908) Lungo Mugrone, Florence pencil and watercolour heightened with gum arabic on paper 5 ½ x 10 ½ in. (14 x 26.6 cm.)
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE (1829-1908) An Italian valley with pine trees pencil and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and with gum arabic on paper 8 7/8 x 18 ¾ in. (22.5 x 47.6cm.)
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE (1829-1908) A Tuscan landscape with village and olive grove pencil and watercolour heightened with gum arabic on paper wrapped around a panel 12 x 23 in. (30.5 x 58.5 cm.)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) Cupid and Psyche pencil, watercolour and bodycolour heightened with gum arabic and gold on paper 14 x 15 7/8 in. (35.5 x 40.5 cm.)
after WILLIAM RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE Britain 1829-1903 Knowledge Strangling Ignorance terracotta 68 x 56 x 11cm PROVENANCE: Haslam & Whiteway, London Purchased from the above 4 December 2001
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE (BRITISH, 1829-1908) The Vision of Ezekiel: The Valley of Dry Bones signed and inscribed 'R. Spencer Stanhope/Florence' (on the backboard) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, on two joined sheets of paper60 x 391⁄2 in. (152.4 x 100.8 cm.)
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE 1829-1908 The Vision of Ezekiel: The Valley of Dry Bones (1902) watercolour and body colour with gum Arabic and pencil on paper signed and inscribed 'R. Spencer Stanhope / Florence' verso (on backing board) 154.2 x 100.8 cm PROVENANCE Mr Joseph Dixon, London, until 1911 Christie's, London, 18 March 1911, lot 29, 18 gns Private Collection, acquired from the above Mrs Anna Maria Wilhelmina Diana Stirling, London Trustees of the De Morgan Foundation, London Important British & Irish Art, Christie's, London, 28 November 2001, lot 9, illustrated Mr John Schaeffer AO, Sydney, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1902, no. 939 Special Collection of Works by the late R Spencer Stanhope, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham, Autumn 1909, no. 51 Pictures and Drawings by the late R Spencer Stanhope, Carfax Gallery, London, March 1909, no. 24 The Victorian Imagination, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2 January - 8 February 1998; Shizouka Prefectural Museum of Art, 11 April - 24 May 1998; Daimaru Museum, Kobe, 28 May - 9 June 1998; Tsukuba Museum of Art, Ibaraki, 14 June - 20 July 1998, no. 27 Masterworks of Victorian Art from the Collection of John H. Schaeffer, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah, 15 February - 16 August 2008 The John H. Schaeffer Collection of Victorian and European Art, Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 26 August 2009 - 28 February 2010 Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 May - 29 August 2010, no. 31, illustrated LITERATURE 'A Painter of Dreams', The Morning Post, London, 11 March 1909, p. 3 A.M.W. Stirling, A Guide to Old Battersea House and the De Morgan Collection, London, 1955, cat. no. 91, p. 30 The De Morgan Foundation at Old Battersea House: Paintings and Drawings by Evelyn De Morgan, Roddam Spencer-Stanhope and William De Morgan, Ceramics by William De Morgan, Wandsworth Borough Council, London, 1983, cat. no. 47, p. 29, inside front cover (illustrated) Francesco Fiumara, A Painter Hidden: John Roddam Spencer Stanhope: His Life, His Work, His Friends: The British Period, 1829-1880, PhD, University of Messina, 1993, p. 373 Richard Beresford, Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, pp. 112, 113 (illustrated)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) The Temptation of Eve pencil and watercolour with gum arabic, heightened with bodycolour and gold, on paper wrapped around a wooden stretcher 23 x 11 in. (58.4 x 28 cm.)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) A design for the reredos at Holy Trinity Church, Florence, including: The Crucifixion; The Annunciation; four Old Testament Prophets; and eight Angels inscribed 'Design for the Reredos/at Holy Trinity-Florence/by/R. Spencer Stanhope' (on a label attached to the backboard) and further inscribed 'angels....to be red one' (on the reverse of the backboard) pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with touches of white and gold, on paper, fourteen watercolours in an elaborate gilt-mahogany Gothic Revival frame by Bertini of Florence 20½ x 10 in. (52 x 25.4 cm.); and smaller; the frame 54½ x 33 7/8 in. (138.5 x 85.9 cm.) overall 14 in one frame
Attributed to John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope (1829-1908) GERALD (b.1955) Medium: pencil Signature: bears typed exhibition label on reverse Dimensions: 17 by 11cm., 6.75 by 4.25in. Provenance Exhibited: Literature: Notes: Label verso reads, "33C Stanhope Boy thought to be Gerald b.1955"
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) A Design for the Reredos at Holy Trinity, Florence including: The Crucifixion; The Annunciation; four Old Testament Prophets; and eight Angels inscribed 'Design for the Reredos/at Holy Trinity-Florence/by/R. Spencer Stanhope' (on a label attached to the backboard) and further inscribed 'angels..?..to be red one' (on the reverse of the backboard) pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with touches of white and gold, on paper, fourteen watercolours in an elaborate gilt-mahogany Gothic Revival frame by Bertini of Florence 20½ x 10 in. (52 x 25.4 cm.); and smaller; the frame 54½ x 33 7/8 in. (138.5 x 85.9 cm.) overall 14 in one frame
'Patience' signed 'R. Spencer Stanhope'; extensively inscribed (to the right) and dated '1884' (lower right), pencil, unframed 17.9 x 18.8cm (7 1/16 x 7 3/8in).
JOHN RODDAM SPENCER-STANHOPE (1829-1908) - 'Patience - She Sat Like Patience on a Monument Smiling at Grief, Twelfth Night, Act Two, Scene Four', pencil drawing, inscribed 'By R. Spencer-Stanhope, Villa Nuti, Bellagarda, Florence', 7" x 7 1/2", unframed (see illustration).
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) Knowledge strangling Ignorance signed and inscribed 'Knowledge Strangling/-Ignorance-by/R. Spencer Stanhope/-Florence-' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, heightened with gold 19 7/8 x 13¾ in. (50.5 x 35 cm.)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope RI 1829-1908- "Castle and Watermill"; pencil heightened with white on buff paper, bears inscribed label verso, 23.5x35.5cm
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope RI 1829-1908- "Castle and Watermill"; pencil heightened with white on buff paper, bears inscribed label verso, 23.5x35.5cm
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope RI 1829-1908- "Castle and Watermill"; pencil heightened with white on buff paper, bears inscribed label verso, 23.5x35.5cm
A photographic plate viewer, hinged and leather covered, containing a coloured glass plate depicting a reclining female nude in classical pose in the manner of John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908), 24 x 19cm; together with two coloured and four black and white glass plates depicting Lord Byron after the painting by Richard Westall, R.A
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) Winnowing signed with initials (lower right) and further signed and inscribed 'WINNOWING/by/R. Spencer Stanhope/Villa Nuti/Bellosguardo/Florence' (on the artist's label attached to backboard) pencil and watercolour with gum arabic, heightened with bodycolour, the sheet extended along the lower edge 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.7 cm.)
PROPERTY OF PRE-RAPHAELITE INC. JULIET AND THE NURSE measurements note 109 by 127 cm., 43 by 50 in. oil on canvas PROVENANCE Sotheby's Belgravia, London, 9 April 1974, lot 69a; Private collection EXHIBITED Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art; Ibaraki, Museum of Modern Art; Kintetsu Nara Hall; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Shakespeare in Western Art, 1992-3, no. 71; Nottingham, Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham Arts Centre, Heaven on Earth -- The Religion of Beauty in late Victorian Art, 1994, no. 63; Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, I Giardini delle Regine -- Il Mito di Firenze nell'Ambiente Preraffaellita a nella Cultura Americana fra Ottocento e Novecento, 2004, no. 40 LITERATURE Art Journal, 1863, p. 109; The Times, 7 May 1863, p. 7; Athenaeum, 9 May 1863, p. 624 NOTE John Roddam Spencer Stanhope's 1863 painting Juliet and the nurse takes its subject from Act III, Scene II of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The moment represented is that which follows the nurse's telling Juliet that Romeo, to whom Juliet has been secretly married, has killed Tybalt and is banished from Verona. Juliet gazes out over the city of Verona as she absorbs the news. Moments later, despairing of ever seeing her husband again, she tells the nurse to take away the ropes that had been prepared so that Romeo might climb to Juliet's room in her father Lord Capulet's palace. Take up these cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd, Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd: He made you for a highway to my bed; But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed; And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! Hearing these words, the nurse tells Juliet that she knows where to find Romeo -- at the cell of Friar Lawrence -- and undertakes to go to him. Juliet exclaims: 'O, find him! give this ring to my true knight, and bid him come to take his last farewell'. In Stanhope's painting we see Juliet standing at the open casement, its glass decorated with shields showing cardinal's hats in sets of three, while lying on the carpeted floor at her feet are the coils of rope. Juliet's nurse is seated on the right, and watches her mistress with an expression of concern. In the chamber beyond is the bed where that night Romeo and Juliet will lie together. A triptych of the Mother and Child with Saints (loosely based on Duccio's altarpiece of c.1315 in the National Gallery), is displayed on the wall, as if to bless their union. The tragic sequence of events which will lead to the deaths of the 'star-cross'd lovers' are thus unfolding. Other interesting props shown in Stanhope's painting are the chair of ebony and inlaid ivory upon which the nurse is sitting, and which was loaned to Stanhope by Holman Hunt (and which Hunt himself had included in his own painting Il Dolce far Niente (ex Forbes Magazine Collection, New York)), and the arrangement of seven small mirrors set together into a circular wooden frame, of the type that Burne-Jones had used in paintings of the early 1860s showing medieval interiors, such as Rosamund and Queen Eleanor (private collection). From a young age Stanhope had read the plays of Shakespeare, as he had jokingly told his mother in a letter of about a decade earlier when he was a pupil of George Frederic Watts and was spending much of his time at the home of Mrs Thoby Prinsep, Little Holland House: 'I have seen nothing of the Prinseps lately. I have none the less got on very happily with the assistance of gentle Will Shakespeare, whom I read regularly at breakfast and dinner, when I find it acts as a first-rate digestive pill' (A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, London, 1916, pp.309-10). Subjects from Romeo and Juliet were popular with artists in Stanhope's circle of friends. John Everett Millais's early painting The Death of Romeo and Juliet (Manchester City Art Gallery), of c.1848, shows the tragic outcome of the liaison. Frederic Leighton's Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets (ex Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia), of 1853-5, shows the moment when both families realise the tragic consequences of their long enmity, while in 1867 Ford Madox Brown painted a watercolour showing Romeo's departure from Juliet's chamber (Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester). The popularity of such subjects is testified by William Powell Frith's having contributed a painting of the seated figure of Juliet and with the title 'O that I were a Glove upon that Hand' (Sotheby's, 7 June 2005, lot 28) to the 1863 Royal Academy, the same exhibition where Stanhope's Juliet and the nurse was first shown. As Gail-Nina Anderson and Joanne Wright observed in the catalogue of the 1994 exhibition, Heaven on Earth: The Religion of Beauty in late Victorian Art, both the composition and the psychological theme of Juliet and the nurse represent a reprise on Stanhope's part of his modern-life subject Thoughts of the Past (Tate, fig.1), of 1858-9. Common to both is the placing of the figure of a beautiful young woman before an open window, with a view out over an urban landscape on the one side, and on the other a glimpse of the room in which she lives. Thoughts of the Past may show a ramshackle and impoverished London lodging, while Juliet and the nurse displays the private quarters of an aristocratic Renaissance palazzo; nonetheless, it is not fanciful to suggest that this duality of the immediate and the distant -- represented by the conjunction of interior view and panorama -- is intended to indicate the protagonist's sense that the familiar pattern of her life is to be disrupted and that the future is uncertain. The care which the artist had taken to construct the composition owes much to Stanhope's knowlege of the works of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as well as the formative training he had received from Watts. Furthermore, Stanhope was interested in the works of the old masters, visiting museums and collections in the course of his foreign travels and always looking for ways to include into his own art the lessons learnt from these examples. He had written on one occasion from Venice: 'I have been studying Tintoret a great deal lately. He is a most extraordinary genius and I think deserves the comparison that a Frenchman made to me the other day at the Table d'Hôte which was that he thought the genius of Tintoret very much resembled that of Shakespeare both in power and quality' (A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, London, 1916, p.322). More particularly, Juliet and the nurse shows the interior space of the room and its contents with a meticulousness that suggests the study of north European Renaissance art, familiar to British painters through the examples on display in the National Gallery and from visits to the Low Countries. In addition, the influence of contemporary Flemish art on Stanhope's art was suggested in a review of the 1863 Royal Academy exhibition. The critic of the Art Journal observed that the painting betrayed 'mediaeval influences, probably reflected from the work of [Hendrik] Leys', and suggested that Stanhope may have had the opportunity to study such works when they had appeared at the 1862 International exhibition. The painting has a wonderful depth and richness of colour, carefully modulated but also striking in contrasts. Stanhope's friend Edward Burne-Jones is reported to have said once when they were young men, perhaps at the time of their collaboration with Rossetti on the murals from Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur for the Debating Chamber of the Oxford University Union building, that '[Stanhope's] colour is beyond anything the finest in Europe'. Many years later, shortly before his death, Burne-Jones weighed up the particular attributes that made Stanhope's art so admirable: he reckoned him still 'the greatest colourist of the century', but thought that in his later career he had lost something of the close attention to detail of which he had once been capable: 'But accuracy of technique never goes together with great colourists and great draughtsmen' (both references, A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, London, 1916, p.334). Juliet and the nurse was perhaps the type of painting by Stanhope that Burne-Jones was remembering, done in the earlier years of the artist's career and at a time when his lyrical feeling for colour was still allied to the careful representation of surfaces and textures. Juliet and the nurse was presumably painted at Sandroyd House at Cobham in Surrey, built by Philip Webb for Stanhope in 1860. Burne-Jones may in fact have seen it in the studio there, because he is known to have visited Stanhope at about the time it was in hand. Apparently it was placed at the Royal Academy in 1863 where it was difficult to see. Nonetheless, the painting was applauded by the critic of the Athenaeum, who believed that, 'notwithstanding slight evidences of inexperience in painting, and something of the like in composition, this work tells its tale with great spirit and success'. The writer concurred with Burne-Jones that Stanhope's strength was as a colourist: 'Mr Stanhope has an excellent perception of colour and a love of rich tone'. The painting was one of a total of fourteen works that Stanhope exhibited at the Royal Academy, between 1859 and 1902. He later participated in the exhibitions at the Dudley, Grosvenor and New galleries, all venues more sympathetic to the progressive school than the Royal Academy. In 1880 Stanhope went to live in Italy, establishing himself at the Villa Nuti at Bellosguardo near Florence, where he was a central figure in the community of visiting and resident English artists. In the spring of 1909, the year after Stanhope's death, an exhibition of his works was held at the Carfax Gallery in London. We are grateful to Mr Peter Trippi for preparing this catalogue note. CSN
SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS) titled and inscribed twice with the artist's name and address at: 4 Harley Place, Harley Street on two labels on the frame and stretcher
The Women of Sorrento drawing in the Boats oil on panel 431/2 x 651/2 in. (110.5 x 166.4 cm.) NOTES A late work, to judge from its style, the picture was presumably based on a scene that Stanhope had witnessed during a visit to Sorrento, situated on the north side of the Sorrentine Peninsula in the Gulf of Naples. This was, of course, far from his home outside Florence, and he is most likely to have gone there either on holiday or in search of a warmer climate during the winter months. In fact, given his susceptibility to asthma, this may well have been a regular habit. Sorrento is situated in an area of great beauty, and is, as the guidebook says, 'an enchanting place at all seasons'. In the nineteenth century it was a favourite winter residence for foreigners. Ibsen finished Peer Gynt here in 1867, and here, some ten years later, Wagner and Nietzsche had their famous quarrel. For further discussion of Stanhope's genre scenes, see lot 5.
Knowledge strangling Ignorance signed and inscribed 'Knowledge Strangling/-Ignorance-by/R. Spencer Stanhope/-Florence-' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, heightened with gold 19 7/8 x 133/4 in. (50.5 x 35 cm.) PROVENANCE Probably Mrs Mure by 1909. Mrs A.M.W. Stirling. EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1902, no. 919. Probably Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Special Collection of Works by the late R. Spencer Stanhope, Autumn exhibition, 1909, no. 55, lent by Mrs Mure. NOTES Stanhope exhibited two pictures with this title, presumably versions of the same composition. One appeared at the New Gallery in 1890 (no. 81), the other at the Royal Academy in 1902, together with The Vision of Ezekiel (lot 9). Our picture, a watercolour, is almost certainly the 1902 version, while the one shown twelve years earlier at the New Gallery was probably a larger oil. The present picture is undated, and the New Gallery version seems to be missing; nor were the measurements for either version given in the respective catalogues. However, the 1902 picture must have been a watercolour since it was shown in the RA's Water Colour Room, while the 1890 version appeared in the New Gallery's West Gallery, a room which contained many paintings by other artists which were undoubtedly large oils. Our picture's style supports this conclusion. It has a number of features in common with The Vision of Ezekiel, its companion at the 1902 RA, notably the very linear and angular treatment of the drapery and the way in which blue wash is used to lend distance to the background. Yet despite the painter's age (seventy-three), there is no falling off in quality. The forms are realised with care and precision, and the two allegorical figures are well characterised. Nor is there any diminution of the sense of colour which had so impressed Stanhope's circle at the beginning of his career. The way the red of Knowledge's wings is picked up by the tattered banner and the roofs, and then offset against passages of blue and gold, is a fine chromatic invention. It is the sort of colour harmony that Gustave Moreau often created. We know of no formal link between the two artists, but Moreau was only three years Stanhope's senior, and working very much in the same Symbolist tradition. The moated and turreted castle is a motif that Stanhope had used many years before in Our Lady of the Water Gate, a masterpiece of the late 1860s or early 1870s that appeared in these Rooms in November 1992 (fig. 1). The white sky is also a familiar Stanhopian touch (see lot 3). As for the protagonists - a female figure with flying drapery leaning over a naked man, with unkempt hair, seated on the ground - there is perhaps the faintest echo here of the central group in Botticelli's Calumny of Apelles in the Uffizi (fig. 2). Stanhope would have known this picture well, but any relationship with his watercolour can hardly be more than a matter of unconscious reminiscence. It is argued below that The Vision of Ezekiel may make some reference to Victorian fears on the subject of immortality. If, as this suggests, Stanhope deliberately adopted a symbolist agenda in his old age, then it is tempting to look for some comparable meaning in his allegory of the conflict between ignorance and knowledge. Was he perhaps thinking of the civilising force of the British Empire, as Ignorance's broken fetters might indicate? Or were his thoughts nearer home as he made a mute protest at the crass stupidity of Florence's tourists? We know that he hated change and so-called progress. In 1889 he exhibeted at the New Gallery a picture entitled In Memorium. The Old City Walls by the Jews' Burial Ground, Florence, now in course of removal.
Charcoal Thieves signed and inscribed 'Charcoal Thieves-by/R. Spencer Stanhope/-Florence-' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard) pencil and bodycolour with gum arabic 34 x 24 in. (86.4 x 61 cm.) NOTES Like lots 5 and 8, the subject must have been suggested by some scene that Stanhope had witnessed in the Italian countryside. The landscape looks very Tuscan, perhaps being located between Florence and Siena, and it should not be impossible to identify the acquaduct on the left.
The Escape pencil, watercolour and bodycolour 253/4 x 17 in. (65.6 x 43.2 cm.) NOTES The subject is obscure. The obvious identification when figures, like these, seem to be emerging from Hades, is Orpheus and Euridice, but the male figure here has no lyre, nor would he be carrying Euridice in his arms. Hercules and Alcestis have also been suggested; in Euripides' play, Hercules descends to the underworld to wrestle with Death for Alcestis's body, and then brings her back to her husband, Admetus, on earth. However, the youth in our picture is far from being a muscle-bound superman, and Admetus is conspicuous by his absence. On stylistic grounds the picture can probably be dated to about 1900.
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