Perdita. c.1866. Oil on panel. 13 x 11 inches (33 X 28 cm). Collection of Lord Lloyd-Webber. Image courtesy of Maas Gallery. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Sandys's exhibited Perdita at the Grosvenor Gallery Summer Exhibition in 1879, no. 121. The subject is taken from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Perdita was the daughter of Leontes, the King of Sicily, and his wife Hermione. Her father believed her to be illegitimate, however, and she was abandoned as an infant in a remote place on the coast of Bohemia. She was found by a shepherd and raised as his own daughter. Unaware of her royal background, she fell in love with Florizel, a prince of Bohemia, and the son of King Polixines. Polixines, however, strongly objected to this relationship. Later it is revealed that Perdita is the princess of Sicily, she is reunited with her parents, and Perdita and Florizel are allowed to marry. As in many of Sandys's pictures this is not an illustration of Shakespeare's tale; it is simply a convenient title to add to the depiction of a beautiful young woman.
Betty Elzea describes this picture as follows: "Bust of a young woman facing to front, but her head is turned nearly in profile to the left. She has long curling reddish-gold hair which is bound up with two ribbons in classical style, with her long locks flowing behind her. White blossoms are tucked into the foremost ribbon. She wears a round-necked, gathered, bodice of white muslin, around which is a garland of flowering jasmine. Immediately behind her is a background of cherry or plum blossom" (186). The model was Sandys's common law wife Mary Emma Jones. At the bottom of the painting is a solitary pansy flower. In Victorian times pansies were used to express romantic feelings. In this case it is uncertain whether this represents Perdita's love for Florizel or Sandys's love for his model.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
When the painting was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879 a critic for The Architect wrote: "Mr. Sandy's [sic] exquisite manipulation and sense of physical soulless beauty gather praise in the head of Perdita" (290). F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum greatly disliked the handling of Perdita's hair while admiring the draughtsmanship displayed in the face in general:
Mr. F. Sandys's Perdita (121) ... reminds us of the artist's Cassandra even more powerfully than of his Medea. It is a head in profile with reddish hair bound by fillets, hair which is unpleasantly heavy and hard in execution, devoid of the beauty and lightness of human hair, and of an ugly colour. In handling it resembles Antonello da Messina's unfortunate way of dealing with hair. On the other hand the modelling and drawing of the face display rare technical skill and consummate care; few instances surpass the very delicate and tender painting of the lips, while the draughtsmanship of the ear is a thing to be envied. [608]
Bibliography
Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 2001, cat. 2.A.95, 186-87.
John Ruskin and his Circle. London: Maas Gallery (11-28 June 1991): cat. 103, 99.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition." The Athenaeum No. 2689 (10 May 1879): 606-08.
"Studies in the Grosvenor Gallery - II." The Architect XXI (17 May 1879): 289-91.
Tromans, Nicholas and Peter Cormack. Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters. The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2003, cat. 81, 306.
Created 16 July 2025