Lot Essay
The present work was the centrepiece of Burra's 1952 exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery which was devoted to biblical subjects. It is his largest work, together with the war painting Soldiers at Rye (Tate Gallery, London), and the theme of triumph and glorification is somewhat unusual since Burra was generally concerned with violent scenes from Christ's life.
Here Burra's interest lies in the involvement of ordinary, contemporary people and the women are those depicted in his Irish paintings of the early 1950s. Andrew Causey (Hayward Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1985, p.128) makes a comparison between the present work and Gauguin's Vision After the Sermon 'which has Breton women in a position similar to that of the Irish women here - if Burra's Coronation is seen, like Gauguin's vision, as an imaginative expression of popular faith', and also to Stanley Spencer's religious paintings set in his native Cookham and at Port Glasgow.
This work was originally owned by Michael Benthall, the author of the play The Passing of the Third Floor Back which Robert Helpmann adapted into the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals in October 1944. Burra was commissioned to produce the sets and costume designs and Arthur Bliss composed the score.
Here Burra's interest lies in the involvement of ordinary, contemporary people and the women are those depicted in his Irish paintings of the early 1950s. Andrew Causey (Hayward Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1985, p.128) makes a comparison between the present work and Gauguin's Vision After the Sermon 'which has Breton women in a position similar to that of the Irish women here - if Burra's Coronation is seen, like Gauguin's vision, as an imaginative expression of popular faith', and also to Stanley Spencer's religious paintings set in his native Cookham and at Port Glasgow.
This work was originally owned by Michael Benthall, the author of the play The Passing of the Third Floor Back which Robert Helpmann adapted into the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals in October 1944. Burra was commissioned to produce the sets and costume designs and Arthur Bliss composed the score.