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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Walford Graham Robertson (1866-1948), Aurelius and Dorigen
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Walford Graham Robertson (1866-1948), Aurelius and Dorigen

Walford Graham Robertson (1866-1948)

Aurelius and Dorigen
Pencil and watercolour; initialled and inscribed, labelled

'Aurelius and Dorigen/Dorigen of Bretaigne vowed to love aurelius if he could make the sea-coast clear of the black rocks which threatened her husbands vessel - the which by aid of magic he did bring about./The Frankelyne's Tale.'
7 ¼ x 8 inches
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Provenance

Walford Graham Robertson, gifted to
Kerrison Preston, and thence by descent

An illustration to The Franklin's Tale. Here, the already-married Dorigen flippantly tells a persistent suitor that she'll only love him if he can remove the Bretagne coast's jagged rocks.

 

Like Burne-Jones, Robertson seems to have taken 'no advantage of [water colour's] transparency', preferring to 'load on body colour and paint thickly in gouache' (Time Was, p 83).

 

Burne-Jones remained a friend and inspiration to Robertson, who championed the artist's trademark 'dreamy sadness' with 'boding glances of wistful women' - and while some remarked that such pictures were 'tricks which grew monotonous by repetition', Robertson argued that 'all painting is a trick ... O, that 'Burne-Jones' trick, how many - myself among the number - thought they had found it out and could reproduce it' (p 85).

 

In his memoir, Robertson wrote that Burne-Jones, 'saw colour with the eye of a jeweller; certain spaces in his design were to be filled up with various hues so as to make up a beautiful patern [...] Some of his pictures, 'Laus Veneris' for instance, were like clusters of many-coloured gems or stained windows through which shone the evening sun.' (Time Was, p 82)

 

It's possible that this, along with the other watercolours in this exhibition, was exhibited at the Carfax Gallery in their 1906 exhibition of Robertson's paintings, drawings and prints.

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