Bhanavar the Beautiful by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904). 1894. Watercolour: H 30.8 x W 20.1 cm. © Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. SD.911. Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund, Shell International and the Friends of the V&A. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
This illustration of Bhanavar in George Meredith's oriental fantasy, The Shaving of Shagpat (1856), shows her after her transformation from an innocent princess. Wearing her magic jewel on her forehead, she at first dances exuberantly among the serpents as their queen: she "whirled in a mazy dance-measure among them, and sang melancholy melodies, making them delirious, fascinating them; and they followed her round and round, in twines and twists and curves, with arched heads and stiffened tails; and the chamber swam like an undulating sea of shifting sapphire lit by the moon of midnight" (75). But later they turn against her: "they began to swarm venomously, answering her no more.... and Bhanavar struggled and tussled with the Serpents in fierceness, strangling and tossing them to right and left" (100). The work, which followed an earlier monochrome version commissioned for the frontispiece to the second edition of Shagpat, expresses something of the frenzy of both scenes, but particularly the latter — for here she is in the very act of strangling one of the creatures. In the watercolour version Sandys has made great use of colour to exhibit the serpents' spectacular markings. He must have been pleased with the result, because he showed it at the RA's Winter Exhibition in 1905.
With its swirling Art-Nouveau-ish curves and decadent subject matter, Bhanavar the Beautiful would doubtless have had tremendous appeal for Sandys's contemporaries. J. A. Hammerton attests to its success and popularity, describing it as a "well-known picture ... a fine decorative art work" (380). Meredith later asked Sandys to make a copy of it for his daughter's friend, a Mrs Walter Palmer, writing to him on 28 December 1893, "Would it be possible for you — at your leisure — for a sum to suit my small purse, to sketch a duplicate of the Bhanavar with her Serpents, that you did for Chapman? — A sweet lady, a friend of Riette’s, whom I adore, as you would, admires it: and I should like to present a copy from the master’s hand. Payment, if you undertake it, you must submit to. Only I can’t give much — say, £15. Please, answer" (Cline II: 1149). The copy was duly made, and on 21 December 1894 Meredith asked Sandys to take it to her (his own health by then being "very cripply") and to let him know the cost of the frame (Cline III: 1181) — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to Related Material
- George Meredith and His Illustrators
- Overview of Meredith's work, including discussions of Shagpat
- Bhanavar among the Serpents (frontispiece etching)
Bibliography
Bhanavar the Beautiful. Victoria and Albert Museum. Web. 21 April 2023.
Cline, C. L., ed. The Letters of George Meredtih. 3 Vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
Hammerton, J. A. (Sir). George Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism. London: Grant Richards; New York: M. Kennerley, 1909. Internet Archive, from a book in the New York Public Library. Web. 21 April 2023.
Meredith, George. The Shaving of Shagpat. Memorial Edition, Vol. I. Chapman & Hall, 1856.
Created 21 April 2023