Joseph Edward Southall, R.W.S., R.B.S.A., N.E.A.C.

Hartnoll & Eyre (by 1969)
Michael Gillingham
Campbell Wilson Gallery, London
Purchased from the above by the present owner in 2000

Birmingham, City Museum & Art Gallery; London, Fine Art Society: Joseph Southall 1861-1944 Artist-Craftsman, 1980

The present work is a preparatory study for Joseph Southall’s impressive painting titled St Dorothea and Her Two Sisters Refusing to Worship the Idol. The finished version was executed in tempera and gold paint on canvas with eight gemstones, sold in these rooms, 2 November 1994, lot 233. The work was widely exhibited, first appearing at the summer exhibition of The New Gallery in 1902 and then travelling to Reading and Birmingham in the same year.

St Dorothea was a third century Christian martyr of Caesarea, a city of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Her two sisters were ordered by the Roman Governor of the province to persuade her to renounce Christianity. Instead she converted her two sisters and the three were condemned to torture and death.