An Artist's Reminiscences Chapter 8

I was fortunate enough to have some beautiful ladies in my Florentine and Venetian groups. Miss Lisa Stillmann (age 29) was Fiammetta. Miss Galloway of Manchester was the Paris Bordone lady. Miss Lisa Lehmann was my Beatrice. (Mr. Stock, R.I., the artist, was an admirable Dante.) Mr. W. A. S. Benson was Niccolo Pisano. My wife took the part of Laura. My little daughter was an early Italian angel. My eldest son personated the young Giotto, and I represented Cimabue myself, in the white costume in which Leighton painted him, taken from the fresco of Simone Memmi at Florence.

Sir James Linton was Veronese in my Venetian group, the late Mr. J. H. Mole, R.I., personating Titian. The late Mr. John O'Connor made an excellent Michael Angelo, and Mr. E. R. Hughes (age 43) presented a lifelike and artistic portrait of the young Raphael.

Our anxieties and rehearsals (some of our rehearsals took place in the old " Vic " Theatre, on the Surrey side, by the way, then disused as a theatre, I think, but before it was transformed into "Salvation Army Barracks": it was full of queerest gangways and little boxes of dressing-rooms) were over at last, the night came, and the masque turned out very successfully. King Edward then was Prince of Wales, and he consented to be present with the Princess Alexandra, now the Queen, and their suite. They were seated, of course, immediately in front of the stage, which was the stage in the former Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, since altered into a restaurant. At the end of the masque, the whole of the groups reappeared and passed across the stage in procession, passing down before the Prince, and then proceeded upstairs to the supper-room.

Dancing afterwards began in the Prince's Hall. The spectacle was pronounced a great success, and we were asked to repeat the performance, and did indeed give it again at the Mansion House before the Lord Mayor, in the Egyptian Hall.

(Sir) Henry Irving became interested in it, and so much so that he commissioned Sir James Linton and myself each to paint for him our own group or tableau. This was done through the agency of Messrs. Dowdeswell, but I had the following letter from Irving respecting the picture: —

"15A Grafton Street, Bond Street, W. JtUy 31, 1886

Dear Mr. Walter Crane, — I am much obliged to you for writing to me about the picture.

I have told Dowdeswells to send it here.

It is a lovely work, and I consider myself most fortunate to be its possessor.

After our little holiday, I hope you will come and see Faust, and give me the privilege of making your acquaintance. — Most truly yours, H. Irving."

This work, which was in water colour, was sold with the actor's other pictures at Christie's after his death.

I was occupied a good deal in the spring and early summer of 1886 with the design of a series of tableaux — a scheme of Professor Warr's of King's College to illustrate the text of his translations from Homer, The Tale of Troy and The Wayfaring of Ulysses, and also some scenes from the Agamemnon of ^Eschylus.

These were given in the season at Prince's Hall (the scene of the Institute ball and painters' masque of the year before). Lord Leighton, G. F. Watts, and Mr. Henry Holiday designed some of the scenes, which had been given at a private house previously. These were re-modelled, and new scenes and costumes, scenery and accessaries, were designed by me, at Professor Warr's request.

One of the scenes represented the return of Agamemnon with Cassandra. Miss Dorothy Dene (age 27) took the part of Cassandra, and distinguished herself by the passion and feeling she threw into it.

The following letter from her with regard to a change in her attitude in the scene before the house of Agamemnon is interesting as showing the earnest thought she gave to the subject, as well as her consideration for the designer of the scene: —

"The Chase, Clapham May 12, 1886

Dear Mr. Crane, — I write to ask your sanction for an alteration which I wish to make as far as my attitude is concerned in your beautiful tableau. If that tableau stood alone, I should not think of doing so; but it does not: it is a moment in a continuous dramatic action of the greatest difficulty, and which I have considered with the utmost care ever since the part has been in my hands — every step in the action has been considered, and one must, as I need hardly say to such an artist as you, flow out of the other. I propose to stand precisely where you place me, upright, and if possible statuesquely my gaze riveted with intense prophetic emotion on Clytemnestra, but with my arms down, not up. This is to me of the utmost importance as a link in my performance — action comes later on, at the 'Woe, woe.' I feel sure that you will be willing for the performance as a whole to sacrifice this little detail, on which certainly your tableau does not depend. — Believe me, yours truly.

Dorothy Dene.

Miss Dene's (age 35) performance as Cassandra elicited general applause, and it was thought she had a fine career before her. Punch spoke of her as " delightful Dorothy," and printed her portrait (after a sketch by Leighton, I think) in a notice of the tableau. Unfortunately, her early death prevented her taking the position she might have done as an actress.

Professor Warr afterwards printed his translations, and I made a series of designs for the book, which was issued by Marcus Ward & Co. in a rather sumptuous form, under the title of Echoes of Hellas, which included the " Tale of Troy " and the " Story of the Odyssey," together with scenes from the Orestian Trilogy. These designs were printed in black and red by lithography, or rather, from zinc plates, on which I drew the designs myself, and the music, by Sir Walter Parratt and Mr. Malcolm Lawson, accompanied the work as a supplementary volume, This was issued in 1889.

In the summer and autumn of 1886 I was considerably engaged in an agitation for a really representative National Exhibition of Art as distinct from the Royal Academy and its methods, and on much broader and more comprehensive lines, including a better representation of architecture and sculpture, as well as decorative design and handicraft.

There had been rather more than the usual crop of surprising rejections at the Royal Academy that year, and the group of artists who then formed the leading spirits of the New English Art Club felt that something ought to be done — if only to bring their own forms of art more prominently before the public.