The Adoration of the Magi, by Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947). c.1900. Grey wash, black ink, and heightened with white gouache on paper. 9 5/8 x 6 5/16 inches (24.4 X 16 cm). Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, accession no. 45768. Image courtesy of the author.


This drawing is a design for the central panel of a Limoges enamel panel triptych. In the 1890s Meteyard taught the studio side of enamelling at the Birmingham School of Art. Meteyard's second wife Kate Eadie also produced Limoges enamels, at least from 1904, if not earlier. Although Limoge enamelling derived its name from the painted enamels produced in Limoges, France, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the enamels produced at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had little stylistic similarity to this earlier work. The design of this drawing owes much to the influence of Edward Burne-Jones. Interestingly Joseph bears a marked resemblance to Burne-Jones himself. It is uncertain who the model for Mary is, but Kate Eadie is certainly a distinct possibility. The figure of Mary, however, has none of the ethereal qualities generally associated with Burne-Jones's models for the Virgin, but instead has the monumentality of one of Michelangelo's Sybils from the Sistine Chapel ceiling or of one the female figures from Frederic Leighton's late works, such as his Fatidica of 1894. The decorative background of the drawing has an Art Nouveau feel. Another treatment of The Adoration of the Magi by Meteyard, quite different in design, sold at Bonhams, London, on November 15, 2023, lot 95. This watercolour illustration was executed in connection with Longfellow's The Golden Legend, which Meteyard illustrated in 1910.

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Bibliography

Lanigan, Dennis and Douglas Schoenherr. A Dream of the Past. Toronto: University of Toronto Art Centre, 2000, cat. 107, 260.


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Created 30 March 2026