Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs, 1864. Watercolour and gouache on paper, 375/8 x 24 inches (95.5 x 60.8 cm). Collection of National Gallery of Ireland, accession no. NGI.2358, photo © National Gallery of Ireland.
This subject is taken from a medieval Danish ballad translated by Burton’s friend Whitley Stokes in 1855. This tragic ballad relates the tale of Hellelil, who fell in love with one of the knights who were supposed to be guarding her, Hildebrand, Prince of Engelland. When her father discovered that she and Hildebrand were lovers he strongly disapproved of their relationship and ordered her brothers to kill the young prince. Burton chose to imagine a romantic moment of a meeting of the two lovers on the stairs before the terrible end of the story. Hilldebrand and Hellelil flee the castle but stop to rest in the woods. They hear her father and brothers who have been pursuing them approaching. Hildebrand gives Hellelil an important instruction not to call out his name. In the fight that ensues Hildebrand slays her father and six of her brothers and is about to slay the youngest when Hellelil screams out “Lord Hildebrand, for God’s dear love now hold thy hand!” Hildebrand spares the brother but Hellelil calling out his name made him vulnerable and the remaining brother inflicts upon him a mortal wound. After Hellelil recounts this tale to her mother the queen she dies of sorrow in her mother’s arms knowing she can’t live without Hildebrand.
This is perhaps the most Pre-Raphaelite of all Burton’s paintings and his greatest masterpiece. It was certainly inspired by the Rossetti’s “Froissartian” watercolours of the late 1850s, such as The Chapel before the Lists, and Burne-Jones’s chivalric pen-and-ink drawings of the late 1850s and his watercolours from the early 1860s. Burton may also have been looking back at works by Millais of embracing lovers from the 1850s such as A Huguenot of 1852. Burton has included what appear to be white roses and their crushed petals near Hellelil’s left foot. These were no doubt included for symbolic reasons and among the meaning of white roses in the language of flowers is true love and eternal loyalty.
Although in 2012 this work was voted Ireland’s favourite painting at the National Gallery of Ireland, surprisingly the reviews when it was first exhibited at the Old Water Colour Society in 1864 were somewhat mixed and not altogether laudatory. The critic for The Art Journal, which was often skeptical of works that appeared to follow the Pre-Raphaelites, offered the highest praise:
The post of honour has rightly been accorded to Mr. Burton’s studious drawing ‘The Meeting on the Turret Stairs’ (82)…It has too often been the misfortune of water-colour Art to take refuge in a broad, suggestive wash, which imparts to the spectator little more than a pleasing impression. Mr. Burton, with a few others who of late years keep him company in our exhibitions, bids fair to impart to water-colour painting a higher range. The subject of his present composition is shrouded just in that mystery that gives wing to conjecture. A warrior clad in coat of mail meets a lady in the winding of a turret stairs; they pass, yet not without snatching a hasty embrace that tells of love yet burning in the embers of its former fire. [169]
F. G. Stephens, who praises the work’s “composition,” “design,” and “expressions,” writing in The Athenaeum was more guarded in his opinion, criticizing the painting’s “executive qualities.” — something a bit odd in the work of such a brilliant technician:
The pictures which will attract the greatest attention here are, as of late, those by Mr. F. W. Burton. We are disappointed with the largest of these, a romantic subject suggested by a Norse ballad, and styled Hellelil and Hildebrand (82), the meeting on the turret-stairs of a young knight and his mistress. Yielding the wide ends of the steps, the man in mail catches her hand in passing, and imprints upon her arm a fervid but deferential kiss. The damsel, with bowed and averted face, receives the caress and passes upwards on her road. Composition of the figures in this difficult theme was a task performed by the artist with admirable success; the design is almost perfect, and fully tells the tale; the expressions are complete and pathetic. It is in executive qualities that the shortcoming which causes our disappointment appears. The lady’s brilliant blue robe is a splendid piece of production, but lacks sweetness and even variety of colour, i.e. colour and tone in the true sense of the words. The knight’s mail is painted with exquisite care and skill. The figures are beautifully drawn. [618]
Hellelil and Hildebrand “lacks sweetness and even variety of colour, i.e. colour and tone in the true sense of the words” —?
The critic for The Saturday Review, which found the picture more "ornamental” than ”dramatic," was also sparing in his compliments: “There is feeling and originality in Mr. Burton’s Turret Stair where a long-concealed and unhappy passion breaks out in a moment’s silent embrace. The heads are, however, so much sacrificed to an elaborate study of the dresses of knight and lady that the whole work falls rather into the ornamental than the dramatic class. The light and shade are deficient in force, the distribution and massing of the colour is rather heavy, and the lady’s robe is painted with an even, textureless touch” (560).
Note: This painting is a plate in Hugh Witemeyer’s George Eliot and the Visual Arts (link).
Links to Related Material — One of the Studies for the Painting and Details
Bibliography
“The Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Art Journal New Series 3 (1864): 169-71.
Stephens, Frederic George. “Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Athenaeum No. 1905 (April 30, 1864): 617-18.
“Exhibition of the Old Water-Colour Society.” The Saturday Review 17 (May 7, 1864): 559-60.
“Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Illustrated London News (April 30, 1864): 430-31.
“Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Water Colour Society.” The Spectator 37 (May 7, 1864): 536-537.
Last modified 13 April 2022