Study for Holyrood, 1565, William Maw Egley (1826–1916). 1867. Pencil on off-white wove paper. 8 5/16 X 5 7/8 inches (21.1 X 14.9 cm). Private Collection. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Holyrood, 1565 is not the first example of Egley responding to the influence of the second phase of Pre-Raphaelitism, as can be seen in his painting The Lady of Shalott of 1858. It is unknown whether Egley eventually worked this drawing, dated 1867, up into a finished painting but no such work was shown in any of the principal London exhibition venues at that time. Mary Queen of Scots was a popular subject for Victorian painters. In fact Roy Strong has pointed out that between 1837 and 1897, no less than forty-three works depicting events in her life were shown at the Royal Academy alone (163). In Victorian art Mary was generally portrayed as a tragic heroine, and certainly not as a femme fatale. In Holyrood, 1565, however, Egley has chosen to portray Mary with loose flowing hair. In Pre-Raphaelite painting loose, luxuriant hair is frequently considered an emblem of female sexuality, as well as symbolic of the femme fatale. De Girolami Cheney has discussed this area in depth:
"The paradoxical nature of the femme fatale - woman in possession of both virginal and demonical powers - is captured by Pre-Raphaelite painters in their representation of hair. The unbounded, long hair in their depictions of Eve, Venus, or Mary Magdalene commonly symbolizes the power of evil...hair represented temptation, power and beauty...The female as a temptress can also be seen in Pre-Raphaelite paintings of mermaids, fallen women, and young brides-to-be. In these images the treatment is of the lady at her toilet or the lady fondling her hair. The attributes included in these images are usually reflective surfaces - glass, mirror, pond, sea - and toilet items - brush, combs, jewelry. The action of the woman varies: she may be combing, braiding, pulling, cutting, or even biting her hair. In these images, the treatment of the hair can be seen free flowing or bound. The protagonist manipulates her hair as she admires herself in a reflective surface or contemplates her life...This action alludes to the concept of Vanitas...The Pre-Raphaelite artists were concerned to depict female beauty in an erotic, opulent manner; and very characteristically, sumptuous accessories were used to dramatize this aesthetic quest. [163-65 & 172]
This drawing by Egley of Mary Queen of Scots as the young bride-to-be incorporates all of these features. She is depicted brushing her unbound free-flowing hair while looking in a mirror.
The decision by Egley to portray Mary Queen of Scots as a femme fatale with loose flowing hair was likely influenced by the work of Rossetti and his circle. The figure of Mary certainly bears a striking resemblance to that of Rossetti's watercolour Lucrezia Borgia, initially painted in 1860-61. In this painting the standing figure of Lucrezia, with her luxurious hair, washes her hands free of poison in a copper basin. A mirror is present on the back wall. The first design for this watercolour was shown at the Hogarth Club in 1860. Although Egley was not a member of the Hogarth Club, he could possibly have seen this exhibition. Egley's painting is much closer to Rossetti's revised version of Lucrezia Borgia than it is to the original, but since Rossetti probably patched over and repainted the initial version in 1868, this second version could not have been the source of Egley's painting. Rossetti certainly may have been the general inspiration for Mary's free-flowing hair, however, since he did a number of paintings and watercolours of women combing or dressing their hair in the 1860s, including Fazio's Mistress of 1863, Morning Music of 1864, Woman Combing Her Hair of 1864, and Lady Lilith of 1868. If Egley did not have access to Rossetti's paintings, another potential source is Frederick Sandys' Morgan Le Fay, which he undoubtedly would have seen at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1864, three years prior to Egley making this drawing.
Egley's inspiration for this particular Mary Queen of Scots subject was almost certainly derived from Algernon Swinburne's tragedy Chastelard, published in 1865, two years prior to Egley making this drawing. This five-act play in blank verse would have had a following as a cult text circulating in artistic and bohemian circles. Samuel Chew clearly felt Swinburne intended Mary to be seen as a femme fatale when he stated that the poet: "implied in the motto from Maundeville prefixed to Chastelard...that Mary was one of those women of the North who, if any man behold them, slay him with their eyes as doth the basilisk. The tragedy is that of the victims of une belle dame sans merci, beautiful, generous, wayward, terrible, before whom successively Chastelard, Rizzio, Darnley, Bothwell and Babington lay down their lives" (197). Cassidy found this play to be a rather typical Swinburnian theme: "Chastelard has no discernible theme except for the strange love of a rather abnormal youth for a most abnormal woman"(94-95). Ruskin, in fact, had advised Swinburne not to publish the work, and its publication, not surprisingly, created considerable controversy. A critic for The Spectator found the work repulsive and objected to Swinburne revelling in the bestial passions of lust and confessed that it put Chastelard away "with a sense of profound thankfulness that we have at last got out of the oppressive atmosphere in that forcing-house of sensual appetite into the open air" (1343-44). Swinburne in the 1860s was to challenge Victorian middle-class moral values with his writings on other notorious women from history, including Sappho and Lucrezia Borgia, as part of his l'art-pour-l'art promotion of new artistic and sexual viewpoints.
Mary Queen of Scots was the daughter of James V and Mary of Guise. In 1558 she married the heir to the French throne, who succeeded as Francis II in 1559. Francis died in 1560, and in 1561 Mary returned to Scotland. In 1565, the year Egley has set this drawing, she was remarried to her first cousin Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. Darnley had been raised in England and was at least nominally a Protestant. He had arrived in Scotland in February 1565. Although he was three years younger than Mary, she was at once attracted to this tall handsome man. Egley's painting portrays her, likely just before her marriage to Darnley, when she was still very much in love with him. The Cupid on the dressing table, for instance, would suggest their relationship at this time was a loving one. Their marriage took place on July 29, 1565, but it did not take long for Mary to discover that Darnley was completely unfit to share political power with her. In 1567 Darnley was murdered at Kirk o' Field and suspicion fell upon Mary and her purported lover James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. It was felt that either Mary had colluded with conspirators in the death of her husband or at the least had taken no action to prevent his murder.
This was not the only Mary Queen of Scots composition by Egley. A much more conventional representation of Mary was done the same year of 1867, Mary Queen of Scots at Prayer in her Cell. This painting was sold at Christie's South Kensington in 2001.
Links to Related Material
- The Devouring Woman and Her Serpentine Hair in Late-Pre-Raphaelitism
- Lewis Carroll and Sophie Anderson, and the Romanticism of Female Hair
- Victorian Women's Fashion, 1850-1900: Hairstyles
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Bibliography
"Books. Mr. Swinburne's Chastelard." The Spectator XXXVIII (2 December 1865): 1342-44.
British and Continental Pictures. London: Christies South Kensington (22 February 2001): lot 167.
Cassidy, John A.: Algernon C. Swinburne. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1964.
Chew, Samuel C.: Swinburne. London: John Murray, 1931.
De Girolami Cheney, Liana: "Locks, Tresses and Manes in Pre-Raphaelite Paintings." Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts, ed. Liana De Girolami Cheney. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. 163-165 and 172.
Gitter, G. Elizabeth: "The Power of Women's Hair in the Victorian Imagination." Publications of the Modern Language Association XCIX, no. 4, 1984. 936-54.
Lanigan, Dennis and Douglas Schoenherr. A Dream of the Past. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. 95-97.
Strong, Roy. Recreating the Past. British History and the Victorian Painter. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1978.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Chastelard: A Tragedy. London: Edward Moxon, 1865.
Created 17 July 2024