| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | How Queen Guenevere rode on Maying, one of two drawings for a double page illustration to Thomas Malory’s <i>Le Morte Darthur</i> |
| Materials and techniques | Pen and Indian ink. |
| Brief description | Drawing by Aubrey Beardsley, 'How Queen Guenevere rode on Maying', one of two drawings for a double page illustration to Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, chapter I, book XIX (between pp.880 and 881, volume II), pen and ink, ca.1893-4 |
| Physical description | Pen and ink drawing showing a castle, within a decorated border. |
| Dimensions | - Sheet height: 209mm
(Note: Each page is 209 x 172 mm.)
- Sheet width: 172mm
- Image height: 204mm
- Image width: 167mm
Each page is 209 x 172 mm. Pasted to sheet 274 x 223 |
| Style | |
| Production type | Design |
| Credit line | Purchased with Art Fund support |
| Object history | |
| Subject depicted | |
| Place depicted | |
| Literary reference | 'Le Morte d'Arthur' by Thomas Malory |
| Associated object | |
| Bibliographic references | - Evans, Mark et al. Vikutoria & Arubāto Bijutsukan-zō : eikoku romanshugi kaigaten = The Romantic tradition in British painting, 1800-1950 : masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Japan : Brain Trust, 2002
- Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley : a catalogue raisonne. New Haven : Yale University Press, [2016] 2 volumes (xxxi, [1], 519, [1] pages; xi, [1], 547, [1] pages) : illustrations (some color) ; 31 cm. ISBN: 9780300111279
The entry is as follows:
652
How Queen Guinevere rode on Maying
Book XIX, chapter i
By 1 May 1894
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.290-1972; E.291-1972)
Pen, brush, Indian ink and black/ brown wash over traces of pencil on dark beige wove paper laid down on cream paper secured to backing by slotted hinges; each half 8 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches (209 x 172 mm).
FLOWERS: Rose [ball type] (love, passion), daisy type (innocence), acanthus (fine arts, artifice).
PROVENANCE: J. M. Dent; bt. M. Ernest Hart; Christie’s [London] sale 12-16 December 1898 (560); bt. Hart; …; Howes Bookshop (Hastings) Catalogue 177 (3561), Elkin Matthews Quarto 8 May 1950 (7); bt. G. F. Sims (bookseller) Catalogue 18 (14); R. A. Harari, by descent to Michael Harari; bt. Victoria and Albert Museum in 1972 with the aid of a contribution from the National Art Collections Fund.
EXHIBITION: London 1894b (168, where titled Double Page Illustration), 1966-8 (186, 189); Providence, R.I. 1979 (10); Tokyo 1983 (13); Munich 1984 (34); Rome 1985 (3.12); London 1993 (99).
LITERATURE: Vallance 1897 (p.202), 1909 (no.59.xx); Ross 1909 (p. 37); Gallatin 1945 (no. 300); Reade 1967 (p.323 n.141); Samuels Lasner 1995 (no.22).
REPRODUCED: Le Morte Darthur, 1893-4 (between pp. 880 and 881); Reade 1967 (plate 137).
In Dent’s 1894 exhibition, this design was titled Double Page Illustration, identifiable because the other four double-page illustrations for Le Morte Darthur are listed by name. Leaning towards the profiled riders, the trees at the right reinforce the suggestion of pageantry (Reade 1967, p.323 n.141). With regard for the design as a whole, the border looks like brocade, a technique that Beardsley would have seen on Japanese kakemono bordered in brocade fabric; yet the overall effect is medieval. The ragged leaves in the border soften the angular castle towers and stark cliffs which, like all by Dyce’s painting Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5, 1858 (1858, Tate Collection, London, acquired by the Tate Gallery in March 1894, personal communication, Heather Birchall, Assistant Curator, British Art 1860-1965, Tate Collections). A slightly different perspective of cliffs can be seen in the double-page drawing How King Mark and Sir Dinadin heard Sir Palomides making Great Sorrow and Mourning for La Beale Isoud and the chapter heading for Book X, chapter xxi (nos. 549 and 551 above). Ross might have been commenting on this when he wrote: ‘The great cliffs, leaning down in promitories to the sea, have that unreal, architectural appearance so remarkable in the West of Cornwall, a place he [Beardsley] had never visited’ (1909, p. 17). Traces of pencil reveal that the horse on the far left originally had a drape similar to the one on the horse following it. For further comment on the letterpress title on the illustration in the book, see no. 622 above.
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