St Bénézet of Avignon

Details

ELEANOR FORTESCUE BRICKDALE, R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1871-1945)
St Bénézet of Avignon
signed with initials 'EFB' (lower right, within a cartouche) and further signed, inscribed and numbered 'No. 2/St Benezet of Avignon/Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale/55 Holland Park Rd W' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard)
pencil and watercolour with scratching out on artist's board
14 5⁄8 x 10 3⁄8 in. (37.2 x 26.4 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 25 January 1989, lot 414.

Exhibited

London, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour, 1912, no. 48.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Centenary Exhibition of Works by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, December 1972-January 1973, no. 22.
Torquay, Bearne's, Other Worlds, An Exhibition of Illustrator's Works in the Realms of Fairies, Fantasy and the Future, 31 July-11 August 1989, no. 36.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

According to Christian tradition, St Bénézet was a shepherd boy who saw a vision during an eclipse in 1177 which told him to build a bridge over the Rhône at Avignon. It was constructed between 1177 and 1185 but now only part of it still stands. The building in the background, now called the Chapel of St Nicholas, is where the body of St Bénézet was first interred before being moved to the Hôpital du Pont (also called the Hôpital St Bénézet).

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