拍品專文
According to popular medieval legend, St George was a Roman tribune, born at Cappadocia, who came to the town of Silene in Libya. The town was menaced by a dragon, which was devouring the children of its citizens. One day it fell to the King's daughter, the Princess Sabra, to be sacrificed, but as she awaited her doom St George appeared and dispatched the dragon or, as sometimes depicted, took it captive and led it into town. Thereupon the King and his subjects, overjoyed at their escape, were baptised.
The picture is the fourth in a series of seven canvases illustrating this legend which were commissioned by Myles Birket Foster for his house, The Hill, at Witley in Surrey. Designed by Foster himself in the Tudor style and completed in 1863, The Hill was the centre of an artists' colony and full of works of art by its owner's friends and contemporaries. Particularly notable were the furnishings by the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., founded in 1861, of which Burne-Jones was a partner. Although Burne-Jones's art was so different from Foster's, Foster clearly had a great admiration for his work. He seems to have promoted his election to the Old Water-Colour Society in 1864, and was certainly one of his chief supporters in a body from which he received much hostility. Burne-Jones designed most of the Morris stained glass and tiles which adorned The Hill so profusely, and Foster acquired the screen which Burne-Jones had made up from his cartoons for the window illustrating the legend of St Frideswide in the Latin Chapel at Christ Church, Oxford, designed in 1859. However, Burne-Jones's main contribution to The Hill was the St George series which, rather inappropriately, Foster placed in the dining room. The first three canvases were installed by the end of 1865. The remaining four, including the present picture, hung fire, and were only completed with the help of Charles Fairfax Murray, who became Burne-Jones's first studio assistant in November 1866.
The paintings remained at The Hill until Foster left the house in 1894, five years before his death. At his sale at Christie's on 28 April 1894 they were bought by Agnew's, Burne-Jones's dealers, for #2,100, and in February 1895 they were exhibited at Thomas McLean's Gallery in the Haymarket, the catalogue quoting appropriate verses by Morris. They were then extensively repainted by Burne-Jones, who touched up a number of early works in the last years of his life. In the present picture both the Princess and her foremost attendant show signs of this retouching.
In January 1896 they were exhibited again, this time at Gooden's Gallery in Pall Mall, and it was probably then that they acquired the handsome Italianate frames an example of which our picture still possesses. These are very different from the simple black or dark brown frames which are seen in old photographs of The Hill. In August 1897 the paintings were exhibited yet again, at the Munich International Exhibition, where they were awarded a gold medal, and in 1898-9 they made their final appearance as a set at the Burne-Jones memorial exhibition at the New Gallery, Regent Street. Today they are widely scattered. One is in the Bristol City Art Gallery (no.7, The Return of the Princess), one in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (no.1, The King's Daughter), and one in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (no.6, St George slaying the Dragon). One is in a private collection (no.5, The Princess tied to the Tree), and two are untraced (no.2, The Petition to the King, and no.3, The Princess drawing the Lot). Many preliminary studies for the paintings are in the Birmingham City Art Gallery, and a series of highly finished composition drawings in pencil is in the British Museum. A watercolour version of St George slaying the Dragon, dated 1868, is in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.
The story of St George was a favourite with Burne-Jones's circle. Rossetti treated it in watercolours of 1857 and 1862 (both Tate Gallery) and in a set of six designs for stained-glass panels made about 1862 by the Morris firm (Victoria and Albert Museum; cartoons at Birmingham). Morris painted scenes from the legend on one of the firm's early cabinets (Victoria and Albert Museum), and Burne-Jones, whose interest in the subject must have been stimulated by his study of Carpaccio's paintings in the Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni during his visit to Venice in 1859, represented the Saint in a number of easel paintings and stained-glass cartoons. Birket Foster's pictures were his most sustained attempt to give substance to the story, while stylistically they represent a crucial point in his career. During the later 1860s, encouraged by Ruskin, he abandoned the narrative approach he had learnt from Rossetti in favour of a more symbolical form of representation. The St George series are some of the last works in which he adopted dramatic narrative, and indeed already show signs of adherance to Ruskin's ideal. Lady Burne-Jones's account of seeing them at Christie's in 1894 is significant. 'I was surprised by their dramatic character', she wrote in her Memorials, 'especially in the scenes where the King looks at the blood-stained clothes of the girls who have been devoured by the Dragon, and where the poor mothers crowd into the Temple while the Princess draws the lot. I spoke of this to Edward afterwards, asking him whether he had not purposely suppressed the dramatic element in his later work, and he said yes, that was so - for no one can get every quality into a picture, and there were others that he desired more than the dramatic'.
The picture is the fourth in a series of seven canvases illustrating this legend which were commissioned by Myles Birket Foster for his house, The Hill, at Witley in Surrey. Designed by Foster himself in the Tudor style and completed in 1863, The Hill was the centre of an artists' colony and full of works of art by its owner's friends and contemporaries. Particularly notable were the furnishings by the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., founded in 1861, of which Burne-Jones was a partner. Although Burne-Jones's art was so different from Foster's, Foster clearly had a great admiration for his work. He seems to have promoted his election to the Old Water-Colour Society in 1864, and was certainly one of his chief supporters in a body from which he received much hostility. Burne-Jones designed most of the Morris stained glass and tiles which adorned The Hill so profusely, and Foster acquired the screen which Burne-Jones had made up from his cartoons for the window illustrating the legend of St Frideswide in the Latin Chapel at Christ Church, Oxford, designed in 1859. However, Burne-Jones's main contribution to The Hill was the St George series which, rather inappropriately, Foster placed in the dining room. The first three canvases were installed by the end of 1865. The remaining four, including the present picture, hung fire, and were only completed with the help of Charles Fairfax Murray, who became Burne-Jones's first studio assistant in November 1866.
The paintings remained at The Hill until Foster left the house in 1894, five years before his death. At his sale at Christie's on 28 April 1894 they were bought by Agnew's, Burne-Jones's dealers, for #2,100, and in February 1895 they were exhibited at Thomas McLean's Gallery in the Haymarket, the catalogue quoting appropriate verses by Morris. They were then extensively repainted by Burne-Jones, who touched up a number of early works in the last years of his life. In the present picture both the Princess and her foremost attendant show signs of this retouching.
In January 1896 they were exhibited again, this time at Gooden's Gallery in Pall Mall, and it was probably then that they acquired the handsome Italianate frames an example of which our picture still possesses. These are very different from the simple black or dark brown frames which are seen in old photographs of The Hill. In August 1897 the paintings were exhibited yet again, at the Munich International Exhibition, where they were awarded a gold medal, and in 1898-9 they made their final appearance as a set at the Burne-Jones memorial exhibition at the New Gallery, Regent Street. Today they are widely scattered. One is in the Bristol City Art Gallery (no.7, The Return of the Princess), one in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (no.1, The King's Daughter), and one in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (no.6, St George slaying the Dragon). One is in a private collection (no.5, The Princess tied to the Tree), and two are untraced (no.2, The Petition to the King, and no.3, The Princess drawing the Lot). Many preliminary studies for the paintings are in the Birmingham City Art Gallery, and a series of highly finished composition drawings in pencil is in the British Museum. A watercolour version of St George slaying the Dragon, dated 1868, is in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.
The story of St George was a favourite with Burne-Jones's circle. Rossetti treated it in watercolours of 1857 and 1862 (both Tate Gallery) and in a set of six designs for stained-glass panels made about 1862 by the Morris firm (Victoria and Albert Museum; cartoons at Birmingham). Morris painted scenes from the legend on one of the firm's early cabinets (Victoria and Albert Museum), and Burne-Jones, whose interest in the subject must have been stimulated by his study of Carpaccio's paintings in the Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni during his visit to Venice in 1859, represented the Saint in a number of easel paintings and stained-glass cartoons. Birket Foster's pictures were his most sustained attempt to give substance to the story, while stylistically they represent a crucial point in his career. During the later 1860s, encouraged by Ruskin, he abandoned the narrative approach he had learnt from Rossetti in favour of a more symbolical form of representation. The St George series are some of the last works in which he adopted dramatic narrative, and indeed already show signs of adherance to Ruskin's ideal. Lady Burne-Jones's account of seeing them at Christie's in 1894 is significant. 'I was surprised by their dramatic character', she wrote in her Memorials, 'especially in the scenes where the King looks at the blood-stained clothes of the girls who have been devoured by the Dragon, and where the poor mothers crowd into the Temple while the Princess draws the lot. I spoke of this to Edward afterwards, asking him whether he had not purposely suppressed the dramatic element in his later work, and he said yes, that was so - for no one can get every quality into a picture, and there were others that he desired more than the dramatic'.