Elaine or The Lily Maid of Astolat 1870
Sophie Gengembre Anderson
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- Art Type: Oil Painting
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Work Overview
- Elaine (The Lily Maid of Astolat)
Sophie Gengembre Anderson
1870
oil on canvas
158.4 x 240.7 cm
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England
One of Anderson’s most fascinating paintings is among her best, and best-known: Elaine or The Lily Maid of Astolat (1870). She exhibited this in Liverpool, at the first Autumn Exhibition there, where it was very well-received, and was purchased for the city, becoming the first work by a woman artist to enter the Walker Art Gallery collection.
It shows the corpse of Elaine of Astolat being rowed by a servant to Camelot, after she had died of a broken heart for her unrequited love of Sir Lancelot. Her body is ghostly white, and holds lilies as a sign of virginity, and her parting letter to the knight.
The story has many similarities with another popular Arthurian legend of the Lady of Shalott, and is often confounded with it. Anderson’s painting is similar in some respects to contemporary depictions of the Lady of Shalott, but differs in important details. I will examine these in an article tomorrow.
In 1871, the Andersons moved to Capri, which was then something of an affluent artist’s colony with residents such as Frederic, Lord Leighton and John Singer Sargent.
One of Anderson’s most fascinating paintings is among her best, and best-known: Elaine or The Lily Maid of Astolat (1870). She exhibited this in Liverpool, at the first Autumn Exhibition there, where it was very well-received, and was purchased for the city, becoming the first work by a woman artist to enter the Walker Art Gallery collection.
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