Ysoude with the Love Philtre by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904). 1870. Left: Oil on panel. 18 1/8 x 13 13/16 inches (46 x 35.1 cm). Collection of the Museo de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico, accession no. 60.0142. Right: Black and red chalks on paper. 11 ½ x 9 ¼ inches (29.2 x 23.5 cm), also from the collection of the Museo de Ponce. Both images courtesy of the Museo de Ponce. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Sandys exhibited a painting of this title at the Royal Academy in 1863, no. 606, but this is a later version of the subject, of quite a different composition, dating from 1870. This is really the last of Sandys's important subject paintings in oil before he started working almost exclusively executing both his subject pictures and portraits in coloured chalks. Ysoude with the Love Philtre is, in fact, based on a preliminary drawing in coloured chalks and the composition is essentially the same with only minor differences in the details. In her Catalogue Raisonné, Betty Elzea has described both the preliminary drawing and the painting:
Bust of a young dark-haired woman with her head and eyes turned half to left. In front of her is a ledge or parapet on which she rests her hands. In her left hand is a rose, and in her right, a beaker with ball feet decorated with repoussé hearts. Some flowers are lying on the left side of the parapet. Her dress is deeply gathered at the neck and at the shoulder. Above that she wears a white ruff. She wears two strands of coral beads, and a coral bracelet on her right wrist. Immediately behind her hangs a tapestry with verdure decoration…. In this painting, the dress is a blue silk, and the parapet is covered with a green brocaded material. Ysoude holds a gold cup, and red, orange, yellow, and blue flowers are strewn in the foreground, with a small rectangular black box on the right. She wears two bright scarlet coral necklaces and a matching ball earring. The larger of the two necklaces has curious silver beads and charms (perhaps hinting at an antique source) strung amongst the coral beads. In her black wavy hair is a fillet of tawny marigold flowers. The verdure tapestry immediately behind Ysoude has green foliage interspersed with sprays of deep pink coronations. [234-35]
As Elzea points out here, the gold beaker is remarkably similar to the one in D.G. Rossetti's The Loving Cup of 1867 (235).
On the Museo de Ponce website the curators suggest that the flowers in Sandys's painting were included for symbolic purposes: "Flowers have a symbolic meaning in this picture. The roses that appear in the foreground may be the ones that were used to make the potion, but they also represent love and passion. The pink carnations that decorate the tapestry of the background represent romantic love and the bonds of affection. Violets allude to fidelity, while thoughts evoke the feelings that lovers share...Red flowers relate to love and passion, while the silver amulets in the figure's necklace reference lust and treachery." Alfred Weidinger, on the other hand, felt the flowers were included in Sandys's paintings primarily just for decorative purposes: "The predominantly floral backgrounds of his paintings are notable less for their naturalistic virtuosity – unlike, say, the works of Rossetti – than for their propensity to fill the ground of the picture with ornamentation" (103).
The source of the title is the Arthurian chivalric romance of Tristram and Ysoude (Iseult). King Mark of Cornwall sends his nephew Tristram to Ireland to win in his name the hand of the beautiful princess Ysoude. Unfortunately, on the trip back to Cornwall Tristram and Ysoude mistakenly drink a love potion given to her by her mother that was intended for King Mark and Ysoude on their wedding night. The young couple fall deeply in love with each other. Although Ysoude marries King Mark the two lovers continue their forbidden adulterous relationship with tragic consequences.
When the painting and the preliminary drawing were shown at the exhibition Preraffaelliti Rinascimento Moderno in Forli, Italy, in 2024 Caterina Franciosi interpreted the works in this way:
The Ysoude of 1870 is typical of the type of female portraits that became a trademark for Sandys: a half-length portrait in close-up, embellished with accessories, objects and costumes described in detail. The format adopted by the artist recalls the one inaugurated by the Bocca Baciata of Rossetti, who in his own way reinterprets the representations of female figures of Giorgione and Titian. Sandys' work is a hybrid between portrait and historical fantasy. The tragic story of Ysoude, the unfortunate princess who, because of a love potion, falls madly in love with Tristan, the advisor of her future husband… In the chalk drawing, here exceptionally reunited with the finished canvas, Sandys meticulously plans every detail of the composition... In the canvas the artist focuses on the intense blue of the brocade dress, the cup of gold (which contains the potion that will condemn Isolde and Tristan to an illicit love) and the coral jewels, which perhaps allude to the bloody destiny that the duo will meet. In the Victorian language of flowers, roses and carnations symbolically represent feelings of love and passion. For Sandys, the mythical figure of Isolde becomes above all the pretext for the creation of a portrait with a mainly decorative intention, in which the opulent description of costumes, accessories and floral details takes precedence over the psychological characterization of the character. The artist thus "dehumanized" his work, describing it as "a very well-made head, with hands, golden cup, blue dress, etc.," which would certainly "strike" the interested public. Despite its eclecticism, Sandys's realist language puts a brake on any attempt at idealisation: Keomi's figure materializes in all its physical truthfulness and the spectator is asked to make a dizzying effort to reconcile the Renaissance matrix of the work with the brazen modernity of its protagonist. [539-40]
Although Franciosi has identified Sandy's model as Keomi Gray this is very unlikely since their relationship had long since ended by 1870. Elzea has identified the model as a local model from Thorpe where Sandys was working at the time (Elzea, Singular Man, 127).
The subject of Tristram and Iseult proved popular for Victorian painters. Perhaps the best-known Pre-Raphaelite work is D.G. Rossetti watercolour Sir Tristram and La Belle Yseult Drinking the Love Potion of 1867. The tale of the doomed lovers also greatly appealed to a later generation of artists like John William Waterhouse, Herbert Draper, Frank Dicksee, Sidney Meteyard, Edmund Blair Leighton, and John Duncan.
Links to Related Material
- The Arthurian Revival as an Answer to a Changing World
- The Legend of King Arthur: A Pre-Raphaelite Love Story
Bibliography
Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 2001, cat. nos. 3.2 and 3.5, 234-35.
Elzea, Betty. A Singular Man. A Documented Life of the Artist Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. Norwich: Unicorn Press, 2023.
Franciosi, Caterina. "Ysoude with the Love Philtre." Preraffaelliti Rinascimento Moderno [Pre-Raphaelite Modern Renaissance]. Francesco Parisi, Liz Prettejohn and Peter Trippi Eds. Milan: Dario Cimorelli Editore, 2024. cat. nos. 9 & 10, 357, 539-40.
Held, Julius S., René Taylor, James N. Carder. Catalogue. Paintings and Sculpture of the European and American Schools. Ponce, Puerto Rico: Museo de Arte de Ponce, 1984, 274.
Weidinger, Alfred. "Les Belles Dames. Female Portraits in the Works of the Pre-Raphaelites and Gustav Klimt." Sleeping Beauty. Masterpieces of Victorian Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce. Agnes Husslein-Arco and Alfred Weidinger Eds. Vienna, Austria: Belvedere, 2010, 103-09.
"Ysoude with the Love Philtre." British Painting, 1800 – 1900. Museo de Arte de Ponce. Web. 18 July 2025. https://museoarteponce.org/en/obras/isolda-con-la-pocion-de-amor-2/
"Ysoude with the Love Philtre by Frederick Sandys. A Victorian painting reunited with its preliminary drawing." Museo de Arte de Ponce. Google Arts & Culture. Web. 18 July 2025. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/eAWxhyM5koMXIQ?hl=en
Created 18 July 2025