Adam. “In the sweat of they face shalt thou eat bread”. 1870. Watercolour on paper. 32 5/16 x 17 5/16 inches (82 x 44 cm). Private collection.
This work, although executed in 1870, was not exhibited at the Royal Academy until 1879, no. 857. The subject relates to the text from Genesis 3:19 in the King James version of the Bible: '”In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
This image of Adam has much in common with artistic representations of Adam in the Labours of Adam and Eve printed as woodcuts in Speculum humanae salvationis (Mirror of Salvation). Holiday may possibly have been familiar with a copy of the book with Latin text of c.1470 in the British Library (G.11784). The pose of Adam in the woodcut illustration in the text at the British Library bears a close resemblance to that in Holiday’s watercolour, although Adam is seen facing in the opposite direction. This Speculum in the British Library had been republished in a facsimile edition in 1861 that Holiday might have seen. Holiday’s watercolour precedes Edward Burne-Jones famous print of "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman.” This image was initially published as an etching and used as the frontispiece to the first edition of the book A Dream of John Ball And A King’s Lesson by William Morris, published by Reeves and Turner in April 1888.
When Holiday’s watercolour was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1879 a critic for The Illustrated London News found it laboured: “’Adam’ (857), by H. Holiday, a well-drawn study of the nude, but conventional and laboured” (22). A pencil study for this watercolour sold at Bonhams, London, on June 16, 2021, lot 58.
Bibliography
“Royal Academy Exhibition.” The Illustrated London News LXXV (July 5, 1879): 22.
Lanigan, Dennis T. “Renaissance influences on Edward Burne-Jones’s print When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman.” The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society XXVII (Summer 2019): 3-5.
Last modified 16 January 2023