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Lot Essay
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 a 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 R.A. 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 R.A. 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 Academie Julian in Paris under Benjamin Constant and Jules Lefevre. 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 R.A. 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 at Christie's, London, on 30 November 2000, lot 19. It epitomised her style with its classical theme, ambitious scale, emphasis on the female nude and stylistic synthesis between academic form and 'impressionistic' handling.
The youngest of seven children, Henrietta Rae was born in Hammersmith
and brought up in Holloway. Her father was a 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 R.A. 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 R.A. 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 Academie Julian in Paris under Benjamin Constant and Jules Lefevre. 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 R.A. 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 at Christie's, London, on 30 November 2000, lot 19. It epitomised her style with its classical theme, ambitious scale, emphasis on the female nude and stylistic synthesis between academic form and 'impressionistic' handling.