John William Godward, R.B.A.

Christie's, 12 June 2001, lot 102;
Private collection

STRUCTURE Original canvas. The stretcher is rectangular. Generally the work is in excellent condition, clean and ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT UV reveals a few isolated, cosmetic, tiny flecked retouchings to one or two places in the background, mainly to the upper left edge. There is a small spot of retouching to the figure's nose and to the wall just to the right of this. The varnish is uneven which makes the reading difficult to interpret, but there may be a few isolated old retouchings to the figure. FRAME Held in a gilt classical tabernacle frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5718 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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In his study of Victorian painters of classical subjects Christopher Wood wrote; '... the best, and the most serious of Alma-Tadema's followers was John William Godward... All his life he devoted himself only to classical subjects, invariably involving girls in classical robes on marble terraces, but painted with a degree of technical mastery that almost rivals that of Alma-Tadema. Godward was also an admirer of Lord Leighton, and his figures do sometimes achieve a monumentality lacking in the work of most of Alma-Tadema's followers.' (Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers, Victorian Classical Painters 1860-1914, 1983, p.247) Godward's admiration of Leighton is proved by a photograph of a model in his studio standing before a fireplace behind which is a large framed print of Leighton's famous The Garden of the Hesperides (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) in which the female figures have a similar heavy languor to the maidens painted by Godward. Another modern writer has recognised the influence of Leighton in Godward's work; 'Godward's treatment of women is completely decorative. The drapery of Leighton, the slightly monumental cast of the figures, is used for decorative purposes.' (Joseph A. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny, The Social Discourse of Nineteenth-Century British Classical-Subject Painting, 1989, p. 338). The present picture depicts the type of voluptuous model that Leighton favoured, dressed in a diaphanous toga and with her hair gathered up in a yellow bandeaux. She is leaning against a beautifully painted marble wall, her head placed in profile and casting a soft shadow. She appears to be waiting, perhaps for a clandestine tryst, and her attention may be caught by her approaching admirer. She certainly seems distracted as though someone were approaching to her left and by the faint smile on her mouth and the sparkle in her eye, they are a welcome intruder into her sanctuary of marble.  

Godward was a quiet and ultimately tragic man (he committed suicide in 1922) but the bleakness of his solitary life is never hinted at in his pictures which depict a perfect world of happiness and sunshine where women idle away their time in amorous reverie. Consumed by an almost obsessive interest in female beauty, Godward toiled away in his studio upon a series of paintings which explore the varying aesthetics of luscious womanhood. Glamorous, youthful and sultry, his young Grecian maidens are iconic in the eternal perfection of those soft cheeks and elegant white necks. Gossamer Greek robes and backgrounds of cool reflective marble compound the exotic sensuality and suggest links to those smoldering courtesans of the ancient world; of Helen of Troy, Phryne and Campaspe whose passions seem all the more inflamed by the contrast of cool, hard marble. The greatest appeal of Godward's paintings is the sensual rendering of textures and harmonious colouring, from the pale coolness of the marble to the warm blush of the girl's expectant lips.

Androcléa was painted in Rome in 1915 when Godward took a studio at the Villa Strohl Fern close to the Borghese Gardens. It is one of three paintings which take their title from the names of classical women, the two others being Byrsina (Sotheby's, Belgravia, 10 April 1973, lot 175) and Myrhinna (Christie's, 6 November 1995, lot 121). It depicts the same model wearing the same deep-blue and turquoise toga as In the Grove of the Temple of Isis (offered in these rooms, 27 June 2006, lot 19). Her dark hair and Italianate features suggest that she was one of the local Roman girls that posed for Godward at this time. A story told within the Godward family explains his reason for quitting London and moving to Rome; 'He left in a rush, running off with his Italian model to Italy... His mother never forgave him for this breach of conduct. He shocked the family by living with his model.' (Vern Swanson, John William Godward, The Eclipse of Classicism, 1997, p. 96)

In classical mythology Androcléa was the daughter of Antiphoenus of Thebes and sister of Alcida, with whom she was sacrificed. An oracle had foreseen that the only way for the Thebans to win in their war with Orchomenos was for a person of noble-birth to lay down their life for their country and Androcléa and Alcina were the first to step forward. Hercules, who fought on the side of the Thebans, dedicated the statue of a lion to Androclea and Alcida in the temple of Diana. Godward may have known the tale of Androcléa from a lexicon of names from classical history and may have been aware of her associations with devotion and sacrifice. However it is more likely that he chose the name for its poetic associations with a more generalised notion of the ancient past. It evokes allusions to a woman from the classical world rather than depicting a likeness of anyone in particular.