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拍品專文
Burne-Jones regarded portraiture as the 'expression of character and moral quality, not of anything temporary, fleeting, accidental.' However, these ideals caused problems for the artist who had difficulties reconciling the demands of 'likeness' with his own very clearly perceived ideal. 'I do not easily get portraiture,' he wrote, 'and the perpetual hunt to find in a face what I like and leave out what mislikes me, is a bad school for it.' The present portrait of Lady Gwendolen Gascoyne-Cecil is characteristic of the most successful of his portraits, where he has been able to combine these two imperatives. Indeed it was generally only in his portraits of children, family and friends that he was truly successful at reconciling these concepts.
Lady Gwendolen (1860-1945) was the second of eight children of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil (1830-1903), third Marquess of Salisbury and his wife, Georgina Caroline (1827-1899). Her father was a prominent statesman who was first elected to Parliament in 1853, before later serving as Secretary of State for India, and becoming leader of the Conservative Party and then Prime Minister three times between 1885 and 1902. Of her seven siblings, three of her brothers entered politics, another became Bishop of Exeter and her sister Maud (1858-1950) was an active suffragist and President of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association.
Lady Gwendolen's home and family provided an exceptional education in literature, history, religion and the social and economic issues of the day, and domestic and foreign policies to address these. It provided a stimulating environment for her brilliant and inquisitive mind.. She was a supporter of women’s suffrage and fought for the rights of the mentally ill. She was particularly close to her father, and as her mother’s health declined, she not only became his confidante but accompanied him on official trips. In 1906 she began work on his biography and the resulting four volumes, which appeared between 1921 and 1932, are regarded as exemplars of the genre. They also provide windows not only onto the life of her father but onto the values, ideas and beliefs of the politicians of the day.
It seems likely that Burne-Jones would have met the Cecil family through his friendship with Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) and his brother Eustace (1854-1911), nephews of Lord Salisbury. The artist undertook a number of commissions, including the celebrated Perseus series, for Arthur's music room begun in 1875 and the portrait of Lady Frances Balfour, wife of Eustace.
The present drawing hung in Lady Gwendolen's room at Hatfield House throughout her life, and on her death was left to her great-niece Anne Mary Wilson, the granddaughter of Lady Gwendolen's younger brother brother, the Right Reverend Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil, Bishop of Exeter (1863-1936).
Lady Gwendolen (1860-1945) was the second of eight children of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil (1830-1903), third Marquess of Salisbury and his wife, Georgina Caroline (1827-1899). Her father was a prominent statesman who was first elected to Parliament in 1853, before later serving as Secretary of State for India, and becoming leader of the Conservative Party and then Prime Minister three times between 1885 and 1902. Of her seven siblings, three of her brothers entered politics, another became Bishop of Exeter and her sister Maud (1858-1950) was an active suffragist and President of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association.
Lady Gwendolen's home and family provided an exceptional education in literature, history, religion and the social and economic issues of the day, and domestic and foreign policies to address these. It provided a stimulating environment for her brilliant and inquisitive mind.. She was a supporter of women’s suffrage and fought for the rights of the mentally ill. She was particularly close to her father, and as her mother’s health declined, she not only became his confidante but accompanied him on official trips. In 1906 she began work on his biography and the resulting four volumes, which appeared between 1921 and 1932, are regarded as exemplars of the genre. They also provide windows not only onto the life of her father but onto the values, ideas and beliefs of the politicians of the day.
It seems likely that Burne-Jones would have met the Cecil family through his friendship with Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) and his brother Eustace (1854-1911), nephews of Lord Salisbury. The artist undertook a number of commissions, including the celebrated Perseus series, for Arthur's music room begun in 1875 and the portrait of Lady Frances Balfour, wife of Eustace.
The present drawing hung in Lady Gwendolen's room at Hatfield House throughout her life, and on her death was left to her great-niece Anne Mary Wilson, the granddaughter of Lady Gwendolen's younger brother brother, the Right Reverend Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil, Bishop of Exeter (1863-1936).