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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Geoffrey Stillwell AM Collection
• Sale Date:
  22 Nov 2015 ~ 2.30pm
• Lot #:
  10
• Lot Description:
  Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S.
  (British 1833-1898)
  Portrait of Laura Lyttelton, née Tennant
  pencil
  image size: 22.2 x 18.2cm
  signed with initials lower right
• Provenance:
  Geoffrey Holt Stilwell's, Magdalen College Oxford rooms, where he studied from the 1880s; Transferred in 1886 to Coral House, Windsor; The Pines, Windlesham, Geoffrey Noel Stilwell circa 1928; Upon his death to Glen House Ranelagh, Tasmania; From Glen House, Ranelagh, Tasmania, 25 October 1995 to Geoffrey T Stilwell, Tasmania
• Notes:
  Laura Lyttelton was the daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, a highly successful industrialist who had made a fortune through interests in railways and gold mines, and later became a MP for Glasgow. Laura had a blissful and idyllic childhood before being introduced to London Society in the 1880s, where she was an instant success. She was described as tall, slender, large-eyed, highly vulnerable, with an air of delicacy, and in Lucy Lyttelton's words, 'She had the naughtiness, the grace and quickness and mischievousness of a kitten... nothing was safe in heaven or earth from the sallies of her wit ... she could strike sparks out of dead wood'. In 1885 Laura married Alfred Lyttelton, the younger son of the 4th Baron Lyttelton, who was to make his name at the Bar and in politics. The fairytale marriage was shattered the following year when Laura died after giving birth. The young Laura Tennant's charm had also captivated Edward Burne-Jones, whom she met through her great friend, Frances Horner. Burne-Jones, became one of her most devoted admirers and was known to have called her 'The Siren'. The face of the mermaid in his picture The Depths of the Sea (private collection), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1886, also 'had some likeness to her strange charm of expression', according to his widow. He was devasted when she died, and impulsively wrote the words 'In Memoriam L.L. Easter 1886' on his picture The Morning of the Resurrection (Tate Britain) before exhibiting it at the Grosvenor Gallery that summer.
• Estimate:
  A$30,000 - 50,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.