Study for Beati Mundo Corde [Blessed are the Pure in Heart] , 1852. Pencil on paper. 9 ¾ x 6 ¼ inches (24.8 x 15.98 cm). Collection of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, object no. 76.19. Image courtesy of the Huntington Art Museum.
This is a study for the painting that Collins exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852, no. 347, where it was accompanied by these lines in the exhibition catalogue "So keep thou by calm prayer and searching thought, etc." The drawing itself is inscribed on an old mount "Beati Mundo Corde / Let no earth-stain thy robe of glory mar:/ Wrap it around thy bosom undefiled...Keble." This is a quotation from the highly influential Anglican clergyman John Keble's Lyra Innocentium: Thoughts in Verse on Christian Children, Their Ways and Privileges, first published in 1846. The lines come from the eleventh poem, entitled "White Apparel" I. The Chrisom, which refer to the Biblical text, with its dramatic paradox: "These are they which ... have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 7, 14).
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Bibliography
Beati Mundo Corde. The Huntingdon. Web. 17 September 2024.
Created 17 September 2024