Lot Essay
This hitherto unpublised picture is an important addition to Stanhope's not over abundant oeuvre, being only the second major work that is known to survive from his earliest and most Pre-Raphaelite phase. The other is Thoughts of the Past (Tate Gallery), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859, which explores the theme of prostitution that was so popular in Pre-Raphaelite circles at this date. Rossetti's never completed picture Found is the obvious comparison, and indeed Thoughts of the Past is very Rossettian. The cluttered room recalls his work, his model and mistress Fanny Cornforth posed for the figure of the 'unfortunate', and the picture was painted in a studio below his in Chatham Place, Blackfriars. A view of the Thames is seen through the window of the girl's apartment.
Stanhope came from an aristocratic background. His grandfather on his mother's side was Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, one of the great agricultural reformers of his day. Educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, he resisted strong parental opposition to become an artist and studied under G.F. Watts, whom he accompanied on visits to Italy (1853) and Greece (1856-7). In the late 1850s he met Rossetti and Burne-Jones, both of whom were habitués of Little Holland House, where Watts lived as Mrs Prinsep's 'tame' genius; and in 1857 he joined them and others in painting the famous but ill-fated murals illustrating the Morte d'Arthur on the walls of the Oxford Union. Watts's teaching had been rather arid ('he utterly condemns all mannerisms', Stanhope reported, 'and says that nothing ought to be studied (the Elgin marbles excepted) but nature'), and the young man easily fell a victim to Rossetti's powerful personality and emotive art.
Thoughts of the Past, painted not long after his return from Oxford, was the immediate outcome of these heady new influences, and our picture can hardly be much later. Full of wilful Pre-Raphaelite quaintnesses, it was exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1860, together with two other works - After Sunset and High Peak, Sidmouth - that were either pure landscapes or, like our picture, contained a large landscape element. Stanhope had also shown two pictures at Liverpool in 1859, The Oak Room and Lynmouth, West Devon. The Pre-Raphaelites had been exhibiting there since the early 1850s, frequently being awarded the £50 non-member prize, and inspiring an inportant local offshoot of the movement. Stanhope's contributions in 1859 and 1860 were part of this phenomenon, and his work was seen in the company of that of many of his Pre-Raphaelite peers. In 1860, for instance, the exhibition included pictures by Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Arthur Hughes, J.W. Inchbold, W.S. Burton and Henry Wallis, as well as two of the main local followers, James Campbell and William Davis. After 1860 Stanhope ceased to exhibit at Liverpool, presumably because he felt committed to the Royal Academy, where he had made his debut in 1859.
If Thoughts of the Past is Rossettian in sentiment and conception, Robins of Modern Times belongs to a type of early Pre-Raphaelite picture in which figures, often children, are seen lying or seated on the ground in intense if unconscious communion with nature. Ruskin was no doubt the ultimate inspiration for these images and a number of artists produced them, but it was Arthur Hughes who gave them most consistent expression. Home from Sea, began in 1856 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and The Rift in the Lute of 1862 (Carlisle Art Gallery) are examples, but the closest to Stanhope's picture is The Woodman's Child (Tate Gallery) which, significantly enough, was exhibited at Liverpool in 1860, the very year theat Stanhope showed Robins of Modern Times. Both pictures show children asleep in landscapes, Hughes choosing a forest setting, Stanhope more open terrain, and Hughes's child is watched by a squirrel and a bird, just as Stanhope's is observed by robins. Hughes had been one of the artists involved with the Oxford Union murals; Stanhope may well have seen more of him on their return to London, and resolved to try his hand at a form of composition that was becoming almost a hallmark of his style.
Whatever its relationship with the work of Hughes, Stanhope's picture adds a new dimension to our picture of his early work. Hitherto represented only by the claustrophobic interior of Thoughts of the Past, it is now seen to include landscape of a particularly personal kind. Many years later Burne-Jones was to tell his assistant T.M. Rooke that Stanhope in his early work showed 'an extrordinary turn for landscape - quite individual. Rossetti was in a perfect state of enthusiasm about it'. This has always seemed rather puzzling but now it is abundantly explained, especially as the picture is seen to be one of a group of landscapes that Stanhope exhibited at Liverpool.
The picture's title is puzzling. Could it be a humorous variant of 'Ruins of Past Times'? Whatever the case, there seem to be nuances which are lost to us at present, though research may shed light on the subject.
Stanhope came from an aristocratic background. His grandfather on his mother's side was Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, one of the great agricultural reformers of his day. Educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, he resisted strong parental opposition to become an artist and studied under G.F. Watts, whom he accompanied on visits to Italy (1853) and Greece (1856-7). In the late 1850s he met Rossetti and Burne-Jones, both of whom were habitués of Little Holland House, where Watts lived as Mrs Prinsep's 'tame' genius; and in 1857 he joined them and others in painting the famous but ill-fated murals illustrating the Morte d'Arthur on the walls of the Oxford Union. Watts's teaching had been rather arid ('he utterly condemns all mannerisms', Stanhope reported, 'and says that nothing ought to be studied (the Elgin marbles excepted) but nature'), and the young man easily fell a victim to Rossetti's powerful personality and emotive art.
Thoughts of the Past, painted not long after his return from Oxford, was the immediate outcome of these heady new influences, and our picture can hardly be much later. Full of wilful Pre-Raphaelite quaintnesses, it was exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1860, together with two other works - After Sunset and High Peak, Sidmouth - that were either pure landscapes or, like our picture, contained a large landscape element. Stanhope had also shown two pictures at Liverpool in 1859, The Oak Room and Lynmouth, West Devon. The Pre-Raphaelites had been exhibiting there since the early 1850s, frequently being awarded the £50 non-member prize, and inspiring an inportant local offshoot of the movement. Stanhope's contributions in 1859 and 1860 were part of this phenomenon, and his work was seen in the company of that of many of his Pre-Raphaelite peers. In 1860, for instance, the exhibition included pictures by Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Arthur Hughes, J.W. Inchbold, W.S. Burton and Henry Wallis, as well as two of the main local followers, James Campbell and William Davis. After 1860 Stanhope ceased to exhibit at Liverpool, presumably because he felt committed to the Royal Academy, where he had made his debut in 1859.
If Thoughts of the Past is Rossettian in sentiment and conception, Robins of Modern Times belongs to a type of early Pre-Raphaelite picture in which figures, often children, are seen lying or seated on the ground in intense if unconscious communion with nature. Ruskin was no doubt the ultimate inspiration for these images and a number of artists produced them, but it was Arthur Hughes who gave them most consistent expression. Home from Sea, began in 1856 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and The Rift in the Lute of 1862 (Carlisle Art Gallery) are examples, but the closest to Stanhope's picture is The Woodman's Child (Tate Gallery) which, significantly enough, was exhibited at Liverpool in 1860, the very year theat Stanhope showed Robins of Modern Times. Both pictures show children asleep in landscapes, Hughes choosing a forest setting, Stanhope more open terrain, and Hughes's child is watched by a squirrel and a bird, just as Stanhope's is observed by robins. Hughes had been one of the artists involved with the Oxford Union murals; Stanhope may well have seen more of him on their return to London, and resolved to try his hand at a form of composition that was becoming almost a hallmark of his style.
Whatever its relationship with the work of Hughes, Stanhope's picture adds a new dimension to our picture of his early work. Hitherto represented only by the claustrophobic interior of Thoughts of the Past, it is now seen to include landscape of a particularly personal kind. Many years later Burne-Jones was to tell his assistant T.M. Rooke that Stanhope in his early work showed 'an extrordinary turn for landscape - quite individual. Rossetti was in a perfect state of enthusiasm about it'. This has always seemed rather puzzling but now it is abundantly explained, especially as the picture is seen to be one of a group of landscapes that Stanhope exhibited at Liverpool.
The picture's title is puzzling. Could it be a humorous variant of 'Ruins of Past Times'? Whatever the case, there seem to be nuances which are lost to us at present, though research may shed light on the subject.