Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource : The Collection

Launcelot at the Shrine of the Holy Grail - Study for the Figures of Guenevere and Launcelot for Sir Launcelot's Vision

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1857

Accession number: 1904P272

Brown pen and ink over pencil with touches of red chalk and small splashes of accidental colour, on paper.

Width: 320 mm

Height: 252 mm

Guenevere is standing by the apple tree with an apple in her hand. Launcelot is asleep in the bottom right hand corner.

Information

This is one of several preliminary drawings in which Rossetti developed the composition of his mural painting for the Oxford Union. It depicts Sir Launcelot asleep and dreaming of Queen Guenevere. The Pre-Raphaelite artists involved in the Oxford Union scheme used each other as models - a note on the reverse of this sheet, in Charles Fairfax Murray's hand, records that the figure of Launcelot was done from Burne-Jones. It is a rare image of the young and unbearded Burne-Jones, who was then twenty-three,and quite feasible Jane Morris as the model for Guinevere.

Purchased from Charles Fairfax Murray and presented by Subscribers, 1903.
© Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Makers

Association	Artist	Organisation
stDant	Dante Gabriel Rossetti	-

Inscriptions

Type	Position(s)	Method	Date(s)	Notes
G (Gabriel) / Figure of Sir Launcelot for Oxford / Union. Studied I think from Burne Jones / Note by Wm. M Rossetti. / The figure of Launcelot was in fact done from Burne Jones, ''he used me when he could get no one else'' he told me in reply to my question / C F Murray
Notes	reverse centre	Handwritten	-	Pencil

Exhibitions

Catalogue No.	Venue	Date(s)
Works by English Pre-Raphaelite Painters Lent by the Art Gallery Committee of the Birmingham Corporation
59	Tate Gallery, London	1911-12 - 1912-03

Paintings and Drawings of the 1860s Period
157	Tate Gallery, London	1923-04-27 - 1923-07-29

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
227c	City Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham	1947-06-07 - 1947-07-27

Some Famous Pre-Raphaelites
-	Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield	1952 - 1952

Pre-Raphaelite Drawings and Watercolours
-	Cambridge Arts Council Gallery	1953-05-16 - 1953-10-24
-	Norwich Assembly Rooms	- - -
-	Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne	- - -

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter and Poet
135	Royal Academy of Arts, London	1973 - 1973

Burne-Jones: The Paintings, Graphic and Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-98
368	Hayward Gallery, London	1975-11-05 - 1976-01-04
368	Southampton Art Gallery	1976-01-24 - 1976-02-22
368	City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham	1976-03-10 - 1976-04-11

Pre-Raphaelite Drawings
59	Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery	1976-05-02 - 1976-06-20

William Morris and Kelmscott
4	West Surrey College, Farnham	1981-11 - 1981-12

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
-	Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo	1990-09-22 - 1990-11-14
-	Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, Nagoya	1990-11-17 - 1990-12-09
-	Ishibashi Museum of Art, Kurume	1991-01-08 - 1991-02-14

Literature

Author(s)	Date(s)	Publisher	Pages
-
	May, 1894	The Portfolio	p. 47.

City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: Catalogue of the Permanent Collection of Drawings
A E Whitley	1939	Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby	p.319.

Pre-Raphaelite Drawings and Watercolours
	1953	Arts Council of Great Britain	p. 19

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882, The Paintings and Drawings: A Catalogue Raisonne
Virginia Surtees	1971	Oxford University Press, London	vol. 1, no. 93B, p. 5, vol. 2, pl. 119.

Pre-Raphaelite Drawings: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Andrea Rose	1977	The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London	no. 1C8.

Christie's sale catalogue, 28 November 2000
	2000	Christie's, London	pp. 32-33.