ELEANOR FORTESCUE-BRICKDALE, R.W.S. | ROMANCE

The Stone Gallery, Newcastle (by 1969) 

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, October 12, 1994, lot 167, illustrated 

Acquired at the above sale 

The Art Journal, London, 1907, p. 185 

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale began studying at the Royal Academy schools in 1897, at the age of 26, where she studied under John Byam Shaw. A multi-talented artist, she worked in oils and watercolors, as an illustrator, designed stained glass and became the first female member of the Royal Society of Painters in Oil. 

In private correspondence to a former owner of Romance, the artist described this scene:

"I shall be most happy to give you any further explanation of this picture that I can but I hardly know how to do it as I always find it so difficult to write things and also there is so little to explain! The figure playing on the lite represents Romance, the spirit of his song influences all the other people who are seen listening to it. The Lovers lying on the grass, the warrior who kneels under his banner, the old man who still feels roses pressing on his brow and the little child who sits dreaming in the middle of a fairy ring-all lifted up and swept along by the same gorgeous spirit. This is what I tried to express, I did not mean the principal figure to represent Love except so far as he concerns the lovers who look at and listen to him. He is the same and yet appears in different shape to such a different group of people. Please forgive this halting attempt to explain the unexplainable!"