Lot 79: Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947)

Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947)
A sibyl
red chalk
13½ x 8¾ in. (34.3 x 22.3 cm.)

Birmingham, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Masterly Art (Birmingham School of Art 1884-1920), 1987 (no catalogue).

with Whitford and Hughes, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 28 November 2000, lot 25, where purchased by the present owner.

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Sidney Harold Meteyard studied at the Birmingham School of Art, where he also later taught, maintaining a studio near Snow Hill Station in Birmingham. He was extremely versatile, executing designs for stained-glass windows and illustrated books (such as H.W. Longfellow's edition of The Golden Legend), as well as drawings and paintings. He was strongly influenced by the art of Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and many of his works have the same sense of slight wistfulness and a tendency towards symbolist or mythological themes. The figure in the present drawing, with its exquisite detail and dignified tone, has traditionally been identified as one of the ten sibyls of classical literature, although in the absence of further attributes a precise identification cannot be suggested.