John Roddam Spencer Stanhope

Sotheby's, Belgravia, 9 April 1974, lot 69a;
Private collection

Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art; Ibaraki, Museum of Modern Art; Kintetsu Nara Hall; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Shakespeare in Western Art, 1992-3, no. 71;
Nottingham, Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham Arts Centre, Heaven on Earth - The Religion of Beauty in late Victorian Art, 1994, no. 63;
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, I Giardini delle Regine - Il Mito di Firenze nell'Ambiente Preraffaellita a nella Cultura Americana fra Ottocento e Novecento, 2004, no. 40

Art Journal, 1863, p. 109;
The Times, 7 May 1863, p. 7;
Athenaeum, 9 May 1863, p. 624

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 14 Masons Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU. EXAMINATION / TREATMENT REPORT UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural condition The canvas has been lined and while this is providing a stable support, there is an overall pattern of raised craquelure and if these are found to be visually distracting relining could be considered. I am confident that should the canvas be removed from its present lining, treated on the low-pressure conservation table and relined, a better surface would be achieved. It should be stressed, however, that at this stage no further work is required for reasons of conservation. Paint surface There are some very thin but slightly raised lines of craquelure in Juliet's face. Under ultra-violet light a few retouchings are visible.The most significant of these are: 1) a few dots in the brown wall behind the figure of the nurse and fine lines filling craquelure in the steps, 2) a few lines on the nurse's black dress, 3) lines filling craquelure on the folds of Juliet's robe, all of which are very thin and carefully applied, and 4) 2 small retouchings on Juliet's neck around her fingers. The varnish layers are slightly uneven and revarnishing would be beneficial. Summary The painting is therefore in reasonably good and stable condition and no further work is required for reasons of conservation.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Stanhope's 1863 painting Juliet and the Nurse takes its subject from Act III, Scene II of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. We see Juliet standing at the open casement, its glass decorated with shields showing cardinal's hats in sets of three, while lying on the carpeted floor at her feet are the coils of rope. Juliet's nurse is seated on the right, and watches her mistress with an expression of concern. In the chamber beyond is the bed where that night Romeo and Juliet will lie together. A triptych of the Mother and Child with Saints (loosely based on Duccio's altarpiece of c.1315 in the National Gallery), is displayed on the wall, as if to bless their union. The tragic sequence of events which will lead to the deaths of the 'star-cross'd lovers' are thus unfolding. Other interesting props shown in Stanhope's painting are the chair of ebony and inlaid ivory upon which the nurse is sitting, and which was loaned to Stanhope by Holman Hunt (and which Hunt himself had included in his own painting Il Dolce far Niente (ex Forbes Magazine Collection, New York)), and the arrangement of seven small mirrors set together into a circular wooden frame, of the type that Burne-Jones had used in paintings of the early 1860s showing medieval interiors, such as Rosamund and Queen Eleanor (private collection).

From a young age Stanhope had read the plays of Shakespeare, as he had jokingly told his mother in a letter of about a decade earlier when he was a pupil of George Frederic Watts and was spending much of his time at the home of Mrs Thoby Prinsep, Little Holland House: 'I have seen nothing of the Prinseps lately. I have none the less got on very happily with the assistance of gentle Will Shakespeare, whom I read regularly at breakfast and dinner, when I find it acts as a first-rate digestive pill' (A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, 1916, pp.309-10).

The care which the artist had taken to construct the composition owes much to Stanhope's knowlege of the works of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as well as the formative training he had received from Watts. Furthermore, Stanhope was interested in the works of the old masters, visiting museums and collections in the course of his foreign travels and always looking for ways to include into his own art the lessons learnt from these examples. He had written on one occasion from Venice: 'I have been studying Tintoret a great deal lately. He is a most extraordinary genius and I think deserves the comparison that a Frenchman made to me the other day at the Table d'Hôte which was that he thought the genius of Tintoret very much resembled that of Shakespeare both in power and quality' (A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, London, 1916, p.322). More particularly, Juliet and the nurse shows the interior space of the room and its contents with a meticulousness that suggests the study of north European Renaissance art, familiar to British painters through the examples on display in the National Gallery and from visits to the Low Countries. In addition, the influence of contemporary Flemish art on Stanhope's art was suggested in a review of the 1863 Royal Academy exhibition. The critic of the Art Journal observed that the painting betrayed 'mediaeval influences, probably reflected from the work of [Hendrik] Leys', and suggested that Stanhope may have had the opportunity to study such works when they had appeared at the 1862 International exhibition.

The painting has a wonderful depth and richness of colour, carefully modulated but also striking in contrasts. Stanhope's friend Edward Burne-Jones is reported to have said once when they were young men, perhaps at the time of their collaboration with Rossetti on the murals from Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur for the Debating Chamber of the Oxford University Union building, that '[Stanhope's] colour is beyond anything the finest in Europe'. Many years later, shortly before his death, Burne-Jones weighed up the particular attributes that made Stanhope's art so admirable: he reckoned him still 'the greatest colourist of the century', but thought that in his later career he had lost something of the close attention to detail of which he had once been capable: 'But accuracy of technique never goes together with great colourists and great draughtsmen' (both references, A.M.W. Stirling, A Painter of Dreams, London, 1916, p.334). Juliet and the nurse was perhaps the type of painting by Stanhope that Burne-Jones was remembering, done in the earlier years of the artist's career and at a time when his lyrical feeling for colour was still allied to the careful representation of surfaces and textures.

Juliet and the nurse was presumably painted at Sandroyd House at Cobham in Surrey, built by Philip Webb for Stanhope in 1860. Burne-Jones may in fact have seen it in the studio there, because he is known to have visited Stanhope at about the time it was in hand. Apparently it was placed at the Royal Academy in 1863 where it was difficult to see. Nonetheless, the painting was applauded by the critic of the Athenaeum, who believed that, 'notwithstanding slight evidences of inexperience in painting, and something of the like in composition, this work tells its tale with great spirit and success'. The writer concurred with Burne-Jones that Stanhope's strength was as a colourist: 'Mr Stanhope has an excellent perception of colour and a love of rich tone'.  CSN