Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, R.W.S. (1871-1945)

'With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied'

Details

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, R.W.S. (1871-1945)
'With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied'
signed with initials 'EFB' (in a cartouche, lower right) and inscribed 'No 21/ Prothalamion/ "with goodly greenish locks, all loose/ 'untied'/ as such had face a Bryde/ (Edmund Spencer)' (on the reverse)
pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour and touches of gum arabic on artist's board
13 ½ x 10 1/8 in. (34.3 x 25.8 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Bonham's, Knightsbridge, 10 September 2013, lot 94.

Literature

E.F. Brickdale, The Book of Old English Songs & Ballads, Edinburgh, 1915, pp. 119-125.

Brought to you by

Clare Keiller

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Lot Essay

The present watercolour illustrates a line from Edmund Spenser's Prothalamion, the wedding verse he composed for the daughers of the Earl of Worcester, Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset, on the occasion of their joint wedding in 1596. Brickdale has depicted one of the nymphs encountered by the poet emerging from the Thames as they pick flowers for the two brides.

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