Sir Max Beerbohm

Catalogue entry

A01053 [from] ROSSETTI AND HIS FRIENDS (TWENTY-THREE DRAWINGS) 1916–17 [A01038-A01060; complete]
 
Bequeathed by Sir Hugh Walpole 1941.
Coll: Mrs Charles Hunter; from whom purchased by the Leicester Galleries; from whom purchased by Sir Hugh Walpole 1921.
Lit: Lynch, 1921, pp.146–50.

A series of twenty-three drawings, variously dated 1916 and 1917. Fifteen were lent by Mrs Charles Hunter to the Modern Loan Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, November 1917 (98); the complete series was first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, September 1921 (1), in the order in which they are given here, again as Rossetti and his Friends. They were published in book form by Heinemann in 1922 as Rossetti and His Circle, possibly an allusion to Rossetti's Dante and His Circle, the second edition of his translations from the early Italian poets, published in 1874. The complete series of drawings was further exhibited in Paintings and Drawings of the 1860 Period, Tate Gallery, April–July 1923 (336), and was on loan to the Tate Gallery from June 1938. For further details, see below (artists represented in the collection will be fully discussed in the appropriate section of the catalogue).

(xvi) Inscr. ‘Mr. Morley of Blackburn, on an afternoon in the Spring of '69, introduces Mr. John Stuart Mill. “It has recently,” he says, “occurred to Mr. Mill that in his life-long endeavour to catch and keep the ear of the nation he has been hampered by a certain deficiency in - well, in warmth, in colour, in rich charm. I have told him that this deficiency (I do not regard it as a defect) might possibly be remedied by you. Mr. Mill has in the press at this moment a new work, entitled “The Subjection of Women”. From my slight acquaintance with you, and from all that I have seen and heard of your work, I gather that women greatly interest you, and I have no doubt you're incensed by their subjection. Mr. Mill has brought his proof-sheets with him. He will read them to you. I believe, and he takes my word for it, that a series of illustrative paintings by you would” etc., etc.’ below and ‘Max 1917’ c.l.
Pencil and watercolour, 16×11 3/4 (40·5×30).
Exh: Leicester Galleries, September 1921 (16); Tate Gallery, April–July 1923 (336, 16); on loan to the Tate Gallery from June 1938.
Lit: Lynch, 1921, p.148.
Repr: Rossetti and His Circle, 1922, pl.18 (in colour).

John Morley, later Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923), statesman and man of letters, was a close friend of the philosopher John Stuart Mill and came into contact with Rossetti as editor of the Fortnightly Review.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I

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