| Danaë In Colour |
|
|
|
|
John William Waterhouse exhibited two paintings at the Royal Academy in 1892: Danaë and Circe Invidiosa: Circe Poisoning the Sea.
Circe Invidiosa is today in an Australian museum (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), but the current wheareabouts of Danaë is unknown. After Danaë was exhibited in 1892 at the Royal Academy in London, it was exhibited later that same year at the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition and priced at 600 pounds. By 1909, it was in the private collection of Mrs Julia Ellsworth Ford who resided in New York, USA. In 1947, it was reported as stolen from her home, and has not been heard of since. It is known to us today only by a black and white reproduction. When originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1892, the painting was sized 33 x 51 in (84 x 130 cm). It has been reproduced in the following publications (always in black and white):
Danaë, in black and white Some time after, or during, its appearance at the 1892 Liverpool Autumn Exhibition where it was being offered for sale at £600, Danaë was sold to Mrs Julia Ellsworth Ford. R.E.D. Sketchley wrote in 1909 that she had not seen Danaë since 1892 and that it was 'in America':
In the above paragraph, Sketchley also offers a clue about the colours Waterhouse used for Danaë, commenting upon the "deep sea-colour" of the waters. The sea in Ulysses and the Sirens has an especially dramatic and vivid blue colour. (The reproduction on this site does not do it justice — to get a better idea of the sea's colour in Ulysses and the Sirens, take a look at the later painting Tristan and Isolde with the Potion). It is also interesting to speculate whether Waterhouse altered any details of Danaë after it was initially exhibited and photographed. He did do this with at least two or three other paintings: Circe Invidiosa (painted out the serpent's tail), Ophelia (altered the facial expression of Ophelia, and the background) and The Crystal Ball (painted out the skull, though this may not have been his doing). Danaë In Colour Danaë, after Waterhouse This painting is intriguing because one wonders when and where it was made. It seems that Danaë had never been published in colour, and had not been seen in public since 1892. Therefore, how did the copy come to be made? One possibility is that the student painted it in situ at the London or Liverpool exhibitions; or saw it exhibited, and later painted it from the reproduction in RA Pictures or The Art Journal, adding the colours from memory. Another possibility is that the student saw it in the collection of its American owner — however, the copy was found in southern England — a long distance away from America. Some details of the copy differ from the original version: for example, there is a variation in the waves, the baby is smaller and the expression on Danaë's face is calmer than in the original. Perhaps Waterhouse made these changes after 1892 or, more likely, it was simply a case of the copyist not copying the original faithfully, or being unable to do so due to artistic limitations. Whatever the reason for the existence of this painting, it is very interesting to see because it gives us a possible insight into the colours of the original painting. Hopefully, one day the original version of Danaë will be found and we can judge for ourselves how accurate the copyist was!
References
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
