Lot 51
  • 51

George Adolphus Storey

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • George Adolphus Storey
  • The Bride's Burial
  • signed with the artist's monogram and dated 1859 (lower right)
  • oil on canvas
  • 41 by 34 in.
  • 104.1 by 86.4 cm

Provenance

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, October 30, 1980, lot 34, illustrated
Acquired in 1988

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1859. no. 831
London, Shepherd's Gallery, circa 1898

Literature

Athenaeum, no. 1647, May 21, 1859, p. 63
George Adolphus Storey, Sketches from Memory, London, 1899, p. 106, 107
Percy H. Bate, The English Pre-Ralphaelite Painters, London, 1899, p. 90, illustrated following p. 12

Condition

Lined. Faintly patterned, stable craquelure. Under UV: Inpainting to address craquelure in the bride's red dress, as well as in spots in the standing figures.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

When The Bride’s Burial was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859, an excerpt from Dante’s Vita Nuova was published alongside it:

Mark now what honour she received from love;
I saw him leaning o’er her beauteous corpse,
Lamenting in sincerity of grief;
And of the cast a wistful look to heaven,
Where now that gentle spirit finds its rest,
That lady was of countenance so gay.

On the back of the stretcher, however, eight lines from Romeo and Juliet are inscribed on a label. Interestingly, in his autobiography, Sketches from Memory, Storey himself refers to the painting as both The Bride’s Burial and The Burial of Juliet. The writings of Dante and Shakespeare were very important to the Pre-Raphaelites, whose influence on Storey is evident through his palette, compositional arrangement, and meticulous attention to depicting the elements of nature, but also in his rather ambiguous choice of subject. Contrary to the Pre-Raphaelite persuasion however, and more typical of the Victorian genre, Storey has decided to enact the scene using children.