Freehand Drawing: Giotto's Round O

Physical description

Eight figures (men and youths) in 'medieval' costume. Some wearing ruffs. Giotto at the centre showing depiction of an 'O' to pope on the left.

Place of Origin

London, England (painted)

Date

ca. 1874 (painted)

Artist/maker

Richard Redgrave, born 1804 - died 1888 (painter)

Materials and Techniques

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Height: 143.5 cm measured from highest point of lunette, Width: 263.5 cm

Object history note

Freehand Drawing: Giotto's Round 'O' was commissioned to decorate one of eighteen lunette-shaped recesses in the upper portion of rooms 100 and 101 (at that time the National Competition Gallery). The lunettes were removed just before the Second World War and placed in store.

Historical significance: The National Competition Gallery (now rooms 100 and 101) in the East Ranges of the Museum was completed in 1864-65. At that time it was formed of two parallel top-lit rooms; these were used for the marking and display of work by art students in Department of Science and Art-run schools across the country. Richard Redgrave, who was placed in charge of the decoration of the gallery in 1863, proposed to commission paintings for the eighteen lunettes along the upper sections of the walls. The project, managed jointly by Redgrave and Henry Cole, continued for thirteen years; several lunettes were completed and in position by 1868, although work was not completed fully until 1876.

Broadly speaking, there were two stages in the production of the lunettes. Most of those created towards the beginning of the period were decorative, allegorical paintings carried out by art students from designs by Godfrey Sykes, Frank Moody, Alfred Morgan and Redgrave. A second stage was initiated in November of 1867 by William Frederick Yeames who contacted Cole and suggested that he should be commissioned for the project. Initial plans to commission other artists of the stature of Leighton, Watts and Poynter were scaled down, and the core of those chosen were historical genre painters from the loose association of artists known as the St John's Wood Clique: Yeames himself, G.D. Leslie, Henry Stacy Marks and D.W. Wynfield. Cole held a meeting with the artists to establish a theme for the lunettes, and, appropriately for a gallery in which students' work was displayed and judged, it was decided that the paintings should represent the practices of drawing, painting and sculpture in a programmatic representation of Redgrave's curriculum for art schools, the National Course of Art Instruction. The resulting subjects treated by the compositional canvases included life drawing, modelling from the life, study of anatomy, landscape painting, flower painting and still life drawing.

The various artistic activities represented in the paintings are set within relevant historical contexts; each takes place within the period and place considered to have fostered its inception or its apogee. So drawing the skeletal structure of the body is set in Renaissance Florence; still-life drawing is given a 17th-century Flemish setting; and landscape sketching takes place in 19th-century England.

Freehand Drawing: Giotto's Round 'O',designed by Richard Redgrave (1804-1888), illustrates the story from Vasari's Lives of the Artistswhich relates how Pope Benedict XI was anxious to employ Giotto, the most famous Florentine artist. Giotto was asked by the Pope's messenger to make a sample drawing which would be taken to the Pope for his consideration. The artist responded by simply drawing a perfect circle freehand on a piece of paper.

In addition to being a painter, Redgrave was one of the most distinguished administrators of the Victorian era. He was the first Keeper of the paintings collection at the South Kensington Museum and between 1857 and 1880 was Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. Along with Cole he was a driving force in the reform of art education. Redgrave held several positions in the Government School of Design, including headmaster, art superintendent and inspector-general for art.

This was the last lunette to have been painted. The theme of freehand drawing was apparently given in 1868 to Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-98), one of the founder members of the St John's Wood Clique. However, for some reason he did not take part, and eventually Redgrave stepped in with a design. The painting itself was probably undertaken by art students, but in this case they are not identified.

Descriptive line

Decorative lunette painting, commissioned for the National Competition Gallery (now Rooms 100 and 101). Richard Redgrave (designed by), Freehand Drawing: Giotto's Round 'O', ca.1874. Lunette 3 for gallery 100, east wall (commencing from south end)

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

John Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum: the History of its Building, London 1982, pp. 83-87.
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, pp 249
This is the full text of the catalogue entry:

"REDGRAVE, Richard, CB, RA (1804-1888)
Born Pimlico, London, 30 April 1804, the son of an engineer and manufacturer, in whose office he first worked as draughtsman and designer. Entered RA Schools 1826. Worked as a drawing master in the 1830s. Exhibited 141 works at the RA between 1825 and 1883, 17 at the BI 1832-59, and 20 (including four watercolours) at the SBA 1829-35 and 1870-9. Early works were landscapes and costume pieces, mainly l8thcentury and in the manner of C R Leslie; from the 1840s he specialised in modem genre and social comment, before returning to landscape, particularly around his home in Abinger, Surrey, relieving the pressure of his administrative duties. Elected ARA 1840, RA 1851; Secretary of the Etching Club 1837-42. In 1847 he began his official career in art education as Master at the Government School of Design, becoming Head Master in 1848, Art Superintendent 1852, Inspector General 1857, and Director 1874. He was Inspector of the Queen's Pictures, compiling a catalogue of the Royal Collection, 1857-79. As he wrote in 1856: 'I regret to find that I am so identified with office work that it is almost forgotten that I am a painter'
(F M Redgrave Richard Redgrave: A Memoir. . . p l 71 ). He published An Elementary Manual of Colourr ... (1853), The Sheepshanks Gallery (1870), and, most famously, with his brother Samuel, A Century of Painters of the English School ... (2 vols, 1866). He was offered a Knighthood in 1869, which he declined; created Companion of the Bath 1880. Died Kensington, London, 14 December 1888. His daughters Frances (who compiled the Memoir of her father) and Evelyn were also exhibiting artists.

LIT: Art Journal 1850, pp48-9 (referred to below as the 'autobiography'), with engr portrait; Art JournaI1859, p206; Athenaeum 22 December 1888, pp854-5 (obit); F M Redgrave Richard Redgrave, CB, RA: A Memoir compiled from his diary 1891 (referred to below as Memoir); F G Stephens in Magazine of Art XV, 1891-2, pp26-9; ed S Casteras and R Parkinson Richard Redgrave 1804-1888 1988, V &A and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA, exhibition catalogue

Design or Freehand Drawing
SKM16
Canvas, lunette
Commissioned as decoration for the museum 1868

In 1863 Redgrave was put in charge of the decoration of the new National Competition Gallery, later the watercolour galleries, now rooms 100-1. The plan was to commission artists to provide designs for the alcoves and lunettes; this was begun in 1865, and some were provided in May 1868. There were to be 18 canvases, several of which were completed and in position in 1869; the subjects chosen illustrated aspects of the arts of drawing, painting, and modelling, with various decorative panels with compositions of children. Two designs were to be by Redgrave himself: one of the compositions of children, which was painted by RC Puckett, and 'Freehand Drawing', showing Giotto's 'round 0', which is recorded as unfinished in 1874. All the paintings were removed during the reconstruction of the gallery in 1909-10; they do not seem to have been replaced in position and have been in store ever since. A view of the gallery in about 1876 is recorded in a drawing by John Watkins (repr Physick fig 82, p86); Redgrave's lunette is the fifth from the end (south) wall, on the right (west) wall.
The ability to draw a perfect circle freehand is one of the best-known, and presumably apocryphal stories surrounding the early Renaissance Florentine painter Giotto, and is related in Giorgio Vasari's life of the artist.

LIT: J Physick The Victoria and Albert Museum: the history of its building 1982,
pp83-7

Ronald Parkinson."
Jim Dimond, Susan Owens and Sophie Reddington, 'The conservation of twenty paintings for the V&A's National Competition Gallery', The Picture Restorer, no. 38, Spring 2011, pp. 14-16.

Materials

Oil paint; Canvas

Techniques

Oil painting

Subjects depicted

Pope; Ruffs; Di Bondone, Giotto

Categories

Paintings

Collection code

PDP