Eloisa and Abelard, by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, ROI, RWS 1872-1945

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Eloisa and Abelard

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, ROI, RWS, 1872-1945

Water-colour illustration / colour plate

1919

Source: Brickdale 12

Lines printed with the title: "From lips like these what precepts failed to move? / For soon they taught me, 'twas no sin to live" (from Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard). This was a popular subject in the nineteenth century, but it was apt to be more soulfully treated. Brickdale's early twentieth-century version, of the famous lovers stealing a secret kiss, is quite daring — especially in the Gothic context, with the figures in stained glass windows to witness them! Lavish in detail and colour, it has an altogether bolder feel to it.

Related Material

Edward H. Corbould's Heloise D'Argenteuil Forlorn

Image download, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Brickdale, Eleanor Fortescue. Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women. London, New York and Toronto: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919. Internet Archive. Contributed by the University of California Libraries. Web. 7 October 2021.

Warner, Malcolm. Brickdale, (Mary) Eleanor Fortescue- (1872–1945), artist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. 7 October 2021.

Created 7 October 2021