Study for "The Martyr's Last Sleep". 1869. Graphite on off-white wove paper; 6 9/16 X 8 11/16 inches (16.7 X 22.1 cm). Private collection.
This drawing shows the continued influence on British art of the German "outline style" of drawing, popularized by the Saxon artist Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch. As William Vaughan has noted the "success and fame of Retzsch's outline engravings in Victorian England was astonishingly great … in England they excited a strong and long-lived enthusiasm” (123). Retzsch was an artist of significance who greatly inspired the young D. G. Rossetti, J. E. Millais and W. H. Hunt, as well as associates of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood such as Walter Deverell and F. M. Brown. Retzsch's outline style was a further development of the outline style introduced in the late eighteenth century by the English sculptor and draughtsman, John Flaxman. It is somewhat surprising, however, to see an example of this type of drawing in 1869, more than twenty years after the time it had been such an influence on the early Pre-Raphaelites.
It is uncertain exactly which martyr the title refers to, but judging from the woman's costume it must have been during the religious upheavals associated with the reign of the Tudors. It also appears likely that this individual had been imprisoned in the Tower of London in preparation for his execution. During the reign of Henry VIII a number of individuals were executed for their religious beliefs. The most well known is Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), who was Lord Chancellor of England from 1529-32. More resigned in opposition to the religious policies of Henry VIII and was arrested for refusing to swear the oath to the Act of Succession, which would thereby deny papal supremacy. More was executed in 1535.
This drawing therefore most likely represents Thomas More and his daughter Margaret Roper. More and his favourite daughter was a popular subject for Victorian artists. John Rogers Herbert’s Sir Thomas More and his Daughter of 1844, that showed More and Margaret in his cell in the Tower prior to his trial, is in the collection of the Tate Britain. William Frederick Yeames’s The Meeting of Sir Thomas More with his Daughter after his Sentence of Death of 1863, which showed Margaret breaking through the crowd outside the Tower of London to receive her father’s blessing after he had returned from his trial in Westminster Hall, is in the collection of the Tower of London. John Evan Hodgson exhibited In Holbein's Studio [Sir Thomas More and his daughter Margaret Roper in Holbein's Studio] at the Royal Academy in 1861. It is now in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Lucy Madox Brown’s painting Margaret Roper Rescuing the Head of her Father, Sir Thomas More from London Bridge was exhibited at the Dudley Gallery in 1875. It shows Margaret in a small boat receiving the head of her father that is lowered to her in a basket from the pike where his head had been displayed on London Bridge after his execution. It is uncertain whether Egley ever worked this drawing up into a finished painting.
Bibliography
Vaughan, William. German Romanticism and English Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Chapter IV: 123-154.
Created 17 July 2024