SIR GEORGE JAMES FRAMPTON R.A. | MADONNA OF THE PEACH TREE

George Frampton took the subject of this rare bust from a book of short stories written by Maurice Hewlett and published 1899. The story entitled Madonna of the Peach Tree tells of young Giovanna Scarpa 'fair haired and flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant'. Unfounded rumours led her to be stoned and chased out of the city of Verona with her baby boy. At dawn she came through the peach orchard outside the city walls to beg young shepherds for food. Such was her beauty that the boys believed they had seen a vision of the Virgin, and the town was filled with talk of apparitions and miracles.

RELATED LITERATURE

'Royal Academy Exhibition', 1910, Studio, July 1910, pp. 3-16