Lot Essay
Despite the imposing nature of much of his work, Draper is an elusive figure. Born in London, he studied at the St. John's Wood Art School before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1884. Five years later he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship, which enabled him to pursue his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris and in Rome. He exhibited at the R.A. from 1887, and The Lament for Icarus (Tate Gallery) was bought for the Chantrey Bequest in 1898. He was also a popular choice with museums seeking to build up collections of modern British pictures in the regions and colonies; examples of his work are found at Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Preston, Truro and Hull, as well as Durban and Adelaide. Nor was he unacclaimed on the Continent, receiving a gold medal when The Lament for Icarus was shown at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900. It may be significant in this context that from 1894 until his death his work was consistently reproduced in the Studio, a magazine which had a wide circulation in Europe and did much to advance the reputation of British artists abroad.
Like so many academic artists of his generation, Draper built up a flourishing portrait practice. He also carried out decorative projects, notably an oval ceiling painting (30 x 20ft.) for the Livery Hall of the Drapers' Company. Representing Prospero summoning Nymphs and Deities, it was exhibited at the R.A. in 1903, and one wonders if his name could have helped to secure him the commission. He married Ida, daughter of Walter Williams, J.P., and they had one daughter. His Drapers' Company ceiling was painted in a studio at St. Ives, Cornwall, and he evidently travelled since the exhibition of his drawings held at Leicester Galleries in 1913 contained landscape studies made in the Scilly Isles and Switzerland. But he was always based in London, living from 1898 at 15 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, where Waterhouse, Dicksee, Greiffenhagen and other pillars of the Royal Academy were among his neighbors. Given these contacts and the nature of his work, it is strange that he himself was never a Royal Academician or even an Associate. The only professional organization to which he seems to have belonged was the Royal British-Colonial Society of Artists. When he died in 1920, The Times carried no obituary, merely printing a brief notice of his death.
The most striking thing about Draper is that he was powerfully attracted to subjects which had a strong marine or nautical element. All of his most impressive works - The Lament of Icarus (1892; Tate Gallery), The Golden Fleece (1904; Bradford), Ulysses and the Sirens (1909; Hull) - are of this type. His themes here were still literary (Homer, Wordsworth, William Morris and Swinburne all provided early inspiration), and these pictures are on an heroic scale. But as the vogue for great literary or historical 'machines' declined around the turn of the century, he increasingly painted smaller works in which a female nude (or nudes) added an erotic spice to what was otherwise a naturalistic study of water, whether a lake, a river, or a rockpool. The present picture is typical, and there are other expamples in British public collections, Calypso's Isle (1897) and A Water Baby (1900) at Manchester, The Kelpie (1913) in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. No doubt Draper's studio at St. Ives and visits to the Scillies gave him opportunities to study the settings for these pictures, and perhaps he had other haunts as well. In The Ebb (Preston) he has suppressed the figure element altogether, painting a straightforward view of a coastal bay or cove.
Like so many academic artists of his generation, Draper built up a flourishing portrait practice. He also carried out decorative projects, notably an oval ceiling painting (30 x 20ft.) for the Livery Hall of the Drapers' Company. Representing Prospero summoning Nymphs and Deities, it was exhibited at the R.A. in 1903, and one wonders if his name could have helped to secure him the commission. He married Ida, daughter of Walter Williams, J.P., and they had one daughter. His Drapers' Company ceiling was painted in a studio at St. Ives, Cornwall, and he evidently travelled since the exhibition of his drawings held at Leicester Galleries in 1913 contained landscape studies made in the Scilly Isles and Switzerland. But he was always based in London, living from 1898 at 15 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, where Waterhouse, Dicksee, Greiffenhagen and other pillars of the Royal Academy were among his neighbors. Given these contacts and the nature of his work, it is strange that he himself was never a Royal Academician or even an Associate. The only professional organization to which he seems to have belonged was the Royal British-Colonial Society of Artists. When he died in 1920, The Times carried no obituary, merely printing a brief notice of his death.
The most striking thing about Draper is that he was powerfully attracted to subjects which had a strong marine or nautical element. All of his most impressive works - The Lament of Icarus (1892; Tate Gallery), The Golden Fleece (1904; Bradford), Ulysses and the Sirens (1909; Hull) - are of this type. His themes here were still literary (Homer, Wordsworth, William Morris and Swinburne all provided early inspiration), and these pictures are on an heroic scale. But as the vogue for great literary or historical 'machines' declined around the turn of the century, he increasingly painted smaller works in which a female nude (or nudes) added an erotic spice to what was otherwise a naturalistic study of water, whether a lake, a river, or a rockpool. The present picture is typical, and there are other expamples in British public collections, Calypso's Isle (1897) and A Water Baby (1900) at Manchester, The Kelpie (1913) in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. No doubt Draper's studio at St. Ives and visits to the Scillies gave him opportunities to study the settings for these pictures, and perhaps he had other haunts as well. In The Ebb (Preston) he has suppressed the figure element altogether, painting a straightforward view of a coastal bay or cove.