FREDERICK SANDYS
(1829-1904)
 

Penelope

1878

coloured chalks on paper

52.4 x 43.9 cm

P.253

Pre-Raphaelite painter, portraitist and illustrator, Sandys studied at the R.A. Schools under George Richmond and Samuel Lawrence, who taught him to draw in chalks. He soon became a member of the circle surrounding ROSSETTI and Swinburne, whose poems he illustrated.   

This drawing, made in 1878, of a rather Amazonian Penelope is characteristic of Sandys’ more dramatic and highly finished portraits influenced by Rossetti. Comparison with the illustration in The Artist, 1896, reveals that they are the same drawing which has been cut down from 76.2 ´ 53.3 cm (sometime after 1905), removing the right shoulder and unfinished forearm. Two drawings of the same model were shown at the Fine Art Society in 1972, one of them very similar in pose to that in the Gallery’s drawing.   

EJ

Original label inscribed: ‘Penelope’ study for an oil painting of Frederick Sandys [l]ent by C.E. Fry Esq, 55 Baker Street W ‑ Price £126.0.0

PROVENANCE:                Clarence E. Fry; his sale Christie's 18 April 1891, no.57, bought for 38 guineas by Francis Buxton; given by Miss F.M. Buxton to the Red Cross sale at Christie's 19 July 1940, no.17, bought for 2 guineas by Wilson; Leicester Galleries, from whom purchased by Gallery, 1958.

EXHIBITIONS: Watts and Sandys, London, R.A., Winter Exhibition, 1905, no.272.

REFERENCES: E. Wood, ‘A Consideration of the Art of Frederick Sandys’, The Artist, Special Winter 18 November 1896, p.39, repr. p.42; Frederick Sandys 1829-1904, 1974, p.37 no.153, pl.112 (not shown in exhibition); I. Simpson, Painter’s Progress, an art school year in twelve lessons, London, p.454; The World of Interiors, Nov. 1990, p.211

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.