Sensation and Style 1870–1910

George Frederic Watts and assistants, Hope  1886

Watts shows the figure of Hope blindfolded on a globe. She is playing a lyre, of which all the strings are broken except one. Several critics argued that Despair would be a more fitting title. Watts clarified: ‘Hope need not mean expectancy. It suggests here rather the music which can come from the remaining chord.’ The painting was much admired at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle, the world fair that celebrated France’s empire. It was widely reproduced in print and often seen in Victorian households. Picasso used the painting as a source for The Old Guitarist (1903–4). More recently, Barack Obama claimed it inspired him to enter politics.

Gallery label, June 2021

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge  c.1872–5

Whistler preferred the calm of the River Thames at night compared to the noise and bustle of the day. Setting off on a boat at twilight, he sometimes stayed on the river all night, sketching and memorising the scene. He would later paint from memory in his studio. Here, London’s Battersea Bridge can be seen in the foreground. Chelsea Church and the lights of the newly-built Albert Bridge are visible in the distance. Whistler explained ‘I did not intend to paint a portrait of the bridge, but only a painting of a moonlight scene ... My whole scheme was only to bring about a certain harmony of colour’.

Gallery label, April 2019

Sir Alfred Gilbert, Model for ‘Eros’ on the Shaftesbury Memorial, Piccadilly Circus  1891, cast 1925

This is a model for the well-known statue ‘Eros’ (or ‘Anteros’) which stands in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, London. It crowns the memorial fountain to the Victorian social reformer, Lord Shaftesbury. The sculptor wrote of ‘blindfolded Love sending forth indiscriminately, yet with purpose, his missile of kindness, always with the swiftness the bird has from its wings’. The monument was unveiled in 1893 and was the first London statue to be cast in aluminium.

Gallery label, September 2020

John Singer Sargent, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth  1889

The famous actress, Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928), is shown here in the role of Lady Macbeth. At the first performance in 1888, Sargent was struck by Terry's appearance and persuaded her to sit for a portrait. He invented her dramatic pose, which did not occur in the production. Oscar Wilde, who saw Terry's arrival at Sargent's Chelsea studio, remarked, 'The street that on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth in full regalia magnificently seated in a four-wheeler can never again be as other streets: it must always be full of wonderful possibilities.'

Gallery label, August 2004

Andrew O’Connor, The Golden Head  1905

O'Connor was an American sculptor who specialised in funerary and public monuments, and portrait busts. He lived in Paris from 1903 to 1914 where he came under the influence of Rodin and Dalou. This head is an idealised portrait of O'Connor's second wife Jessie, who was the model for many of his sculptures. A version of this head crowns the funerary figure in the monument to General Thomas in Sleep Hollow cemetery, near Tarrytown, New York. This funerary figure is a seated female shown in an attitude of mourning and reflection.

Gallery label, August 2004

Sir Alfred Gilbert, Icarus  1882–4

Icarus and his father Daedulus escaped from prison from the Greek island of Crete by using pairs of wings which they made from feathers and wax. Icarus, however, flew too near to the sun, the wax melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. Gilbert stated that he chose the theme because, ‘It flashed across me that I was very ambitious: why not Icarus with his desire for flight?’ The subject represented the risk of his own ambition. The vibrant surface and themes of death and the recklessness of youth, lend Gilbert’s nude a dimension of sensual eroticism.

Gallery label, February 2010

Sir Alfred Gilbert, Comedy and Tragedy: ‘Sic Vita’  c.1890–2

The Latin subtitle to this work means 'Thus is life'. Gilbert explained that the sculpture represents a prop-boy carrying the mask of Comedy: 'He is stung by a bee - a symbol of love. He turns and his face becomes tragic. The symbol is in reality fact. I was stung by that bee, typified by my love for my art, a consciousness of its incompleteness'. While outwardly successful, Gilbert was trapped in a spiral of debt, disputes over uncompleted commissions and anxiety about his sick wife. He saw this sculpture as 'the climax to my cycle of stories' begun with Perseus Arming and Icarus. From a certain angle the face of Tragedy can be seen through the grinning mouth of Comedy.

Gallery label, February 2010

John Singer Sargent, W. Graham Robertson  1894

Graham Robertson was an author, painter and collector who bequeathed to the Tate Gallery more than twenty paintings and drawings. He was twenty-eight when he posed for this portrait together with his eleven-year-old poodle, Mouton. John Singer Sargent presents Robertson as a London dandy, wearing a fur-collared full-length coat and leaning on a jade-handled cane. In his autobiography Robertson recalled that Sargent had insisted he wear the long coat even though it was summer. He also tried to make Robertson look as thin and youthful as possible.

Gallery label, July 2007

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights  1872

Whistler’s viewpoint is from Battersea Bridge, looking up river. The industrial chimneys of Battersea on the left are balanced by the lights of Cremorne pleasure gardens on the other side of the Thames. Whistler frames his composition so the river spreads out as a panoramic expanse of water, leading to the vanishing point of the horizon. The paint was applied quickly, wet on wet, to produce the smooth sheen of its surface. Whistler has decorated the frame himself, using a motif of gold fish scales.

Gallery label, February 2010

Sir Alfred Gilbert, Perseus Arming  1881–3

The deeds of the Greek hero Perseus included slaying the snake-haired Gorgon, Medusa, and rescuing the beautiful maiden Andromeda from a sea-monster. Gilbert’s statue shows Perseus preparing himself for action. The artist wrote: ‘at that time my whole thoughts were of my artistic equipment for the future [so] I conceived the idea that Perseus, before becoming a hero, was a mere mortal and that he had to look to his equipment’. The work was essentially an allegory of Gilbert’s sculptural ambition.

Gallery label, November 2016

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander  1872–4

Cicely Alexander, daughter of a London banker, was eight years old when Whistler painted this portrait. The artist exerted considerable control over the picture, posing the girl in the attitude of Manet’s Lola de Valence 1862, and designing her dress in detail.

The portrait demanded over 70 sittings each lasting several hours. Cicely recalled: ‘I used to get very tired and cross, and often finished the day in tears.’ Not surprisingly, the picture was criticised for its departure from the more informal formats usually adopted for child portraiture. One critic called it ‘a disagreeable presentation of a disagreeable young lady’.

Gallery label, February 2010

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea  1871

Whistler painted this view from Battersea Bridge looking across the Thames towards Chelsea. The tower of Chelsea Old Church is just visible on the right, and a fisherman stands in the foreground looking out to a low barge. It was the first of Whistler’s series of nocturnes: paintings intended to convey a sense of the beauty and tranquillity of the River Thames in the evening or by night. The influence of Japanese woodblock prints is evident from the relatively small range of colours and the butterfly device at the lower centre, which Whistler used as his signature.

Gallery label, November 2016

Simeon Solomon, The Moon and Sleep  1894

The subject of this painting was inspired by the Greek myth of Endymion who, having been granted the gift of eternal youth by Jupiter, is sent to sleep forever. Solomon here shows the moon goddess Luna visiting Endymion, as she does every night.

Gallery label, August 2021

Sir William Rothenstein, Jan Toorop  1894

This is a portrait of the Dutch symbolist painter, Jan Toorop, who came to England in 1885. Rothenstein later recalled that he had a ‘magnificent head’ and the ‘physical glamour of a portrait by Titian or Tintoretto’. Rothenstein emphasises Toorop’s distinguishing features, including his thick black hair and penetrating eyes.

Rothenstein wrote that Toorop was one of his first models when he settled in London, and that the study was done in one sitting as he ‘didn’t know how to repaint’.

Gallery label, August 2004

Aubrey Beardsley, Messalina and her Companion  1895

Messalina was the wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius, and was noted for her sexual appetite and depravity. At night she would leave the Imperial palace to voluntarily work in a brothel, a journey which Beardsley depicts here. The design was produced for an edition of Juvenal's 'Sixth Satire', published by Leonard Smithers. Smithers published a succession of erotic material in the 1890s, some of it illustrated by Beardsley. Previously refuted or ignored, the female libido was very much a topic of quasi-scientific and religious debate in the 1890s, when opinion began to acknowledge it for the first time. This coincided with the beginnings of a reconsideration of women's status in society.

Gallery label, March 1999

Aubrey Beardsley, La Dame aux Camélias  1894

The title of this illustration comes from the celebrated French novel by Alexander Dumas II about a generous-hearted courtesan who sacrifices herself for her lover. Beardsley shared a similar fate to the courtesan, suffering from tuberculosis that would eventually kill him. However, this drawing must also be considered as one of a series of fetishistic pictures Beardsley made of women preparing themselves at their dressing table. As a depiction of self-contemplation, in the cut-off mirror, it also suggests the theme of narcissism.

Gallery label, September 2004

Aubrey Beardsley, Frontispiece to Chopin’s Third Ballade  1895

The Third Ballade was one of the greatest compositions by the Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin who died in 1849 at the age of thirty nine. While an initial viewing might suggest a simple equestrian portrait, there is an implicit subtext of female domination in the woman’s mastery of the horse. Her determined expression, and the disparity between the horse and rider, reinforce this. Although never published in his lifetime, this design was used to illustrate Beardsley’s obituary in The Studio in 1898.

Gallery label, August 2004

John Singer Sargent, Study of Mme Gautreau  c.1884

The finished portrait, which was exhibited as ‘Madame X’, belongs to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and Tate’s version is a full-size sketch. The sitter was the American wife of a French banker in Paris. Sargent deliberately planned a sensational portrait with an unconventional pose. Her head is shown in sharp profile emphasising her nose; her right arm is twisted and her shoulders exposed. The adverse criticism of the finished portrait at the Paris Salon of 1884 so damaged Sargent’s reputation that he decided to move to Britain.

Gallery label, November 2016