Arthur Hughes

(British, 1832-1915)

Study for Sir Galahad, the Quest for the Holy Grail

Footnotes

Painted circa 1865.

The subject of this work is taken from Alfred Tennyson's poem Sir Galahad and specifically relates to the following lines from the fourth verse:

A gentle sound an awful sight!
Three angels bear the holy grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.

Provenance
George Rae, by circa 1900.
Thence to his widow, 1902.
Rae sale, E. Owen, Birkenhead, 28 June 1917, lot 1695.
By descent through the Rae family.

Literature
Catalogue of Mr. George Rae's pictures, Birkenhead, circa 1900, no. 50.
M. Bennet, Artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle: The First Generation, London, 1988, pp. 61-63.
L. Roberts, Arthur Hughes, His life and works, Woodbridge, 1997, cat. no. 75.2, p. 167.

The present lot is a study for a larger work, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1870 (no. 324), now in the collection of Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (no. 2936). Both the larger version and the present lot were owned by the Birkenhead merchant George Rae. In correspondence between Rae and Ford Maddox Brown, Brown notes (in reference to the prime version which Hughes was still working on): 'Hughes is well and getting his Galahad... ready for next year.' (30 November 1868); nearly a year later, Brown informs Rae that 'Sir Galahad... still remain[s] at the same point (5 October 1869).¹ In later correspondence, Hughes, writing to Agnes Hale-White, notes 'Last Sunday had to go to lunch with the Raes- Mr Geo. Rae, who bought the 'Music Party' in old PRB days and has a lot of Rossetti's best oil pictures is now about 80 and invalidish, keeps [to] his room, but I had a pleasant time with him- all very kind.'²

A similar version of the present lot was sold at Sotheby's, London, 10 December 2014, lot 9. Although catalogued as Probably cat no. 75.2, that work is most likely cat. no. 75.3, as the present lot comes by descent through the Rae family.

¹L. Roberts, Arthur Hughes, His life and works, Woodbridge, 1997, p. 284.
²Ibid, p. 287.