Matthew William Webb

(British, 1851-1924)

Sandalphon - The Angel of Prayer

Footnotes

Provenance
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, Belgravia, 14 June 1977, lot 44.

Exhibited
London, Royal Society of British Artists, 1890, no. 531 (listed as a watercolour).

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

Sandalphon, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Little is known of Matthew William Webb beyond his association with Burne-Jones, where he was employed as a 'junior studio assistant' in 1877.¹. In the 1870s, Burne-Jones's ambition was to 'create a workshop in the manner of the Renaissance painters'.² and many fine artists, such as Charles Fairfax Murray, T. M. Rooke and James M. Strudwick were employed during this period.

Webb was a member of the Art Workers Guild from 1890, and exhibited two works at the RBA (including the present lot) as well as three at the New English Art Club, between 1909-1911.

An allegorical work, attributed to Webb, is in the collection of Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, while a copy after Giovanni Bellini is in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, London. A small gesso relief of a Classical child was sold in these rooms in 2008 (Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 30 September 2008, lot 92.)

¹Tim Batchelor, writing in Edward Burne-Jones, Tate exhibition catalogue, London, 2018, p. 218.
²Martin Harrison & Bill Waters, Burne-Jones, London, 1973, p.110.