They shook me Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain II Jimmy Page and Paul Reeves 29 August 2012 Tate Etc. issue 26: Autumn 2012 Edward Coley Burne-Jones. The Attainment: The Vision of the Holy Grail to Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival Edward Coley Burne-Jones The Attainment: The Vision of the Holy Grail to Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival 1890–4 Cotton, wool and silk 239 x 749 cm © AKG images, private collection The guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin is a fan and collector of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites. He talks to Tate Etc. about his lifelong passion I have had a passion for the Pre-Raphaelites since my early teens. I would have initially seen them as reproductions, but I remember a visit to Tate and encountering the actual paintings. They had a profound effect on me. It was quite an experience – the realism of their technique along with the idealism, and of course the romanticism. This was before I attended art college. Most people would assume that it was there that I was first exposed to their work, but actually the teaching and syllabus of that time was much more to do with modern art and using modern materials – acrylics in particular – so oil painting, particularly of earlier styles, was not championed. My study of Pre- Raphaelitism, if you need to call it that, was therefore entirely self-driven and a personal quest. Edward Coley Burne-Jones The Arming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table and the Quest for the Holy Grail Pre-Raphaelite tapestry Edward Coley Burne-Jones The Arming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table and the Quest for the Holy Grail 1890–4 Cotton, wool and silk 240 x 347 cm © The Bridgeman Art Library, private collection As you know, this art was selling for mere hundreds of pounds at the time, but I was a student and didn’t have that kind of money to buy it. However, as soon as I was in a position to do so, I indulged myself. As to which of the artists I most admired, of course I adored Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but is there any point or justification in singling out any of them? The art and life and death of Lizzie Siddal always moved me. I think it would be fair to say that I was pretty intoxicated with the whole movement. Later, I had the chance to buy the two tapestries which are on loan to the Tate exhibition. There were three in an auction at Sotheby’s, Belgravia; I think the date was 1978. I fixed on the two I acquired, although all three were beautiful. What enthralled me was the majesty of their drawing and of the execution of the tapestries by those unbelievably skilled craftsmen. The attention to detail of the subject matter and even the background of verdure and flora is still quite astonishing to me. At the time I found it overwhelming. I only hope visitors to the exhibition will feel the same intensity of passion as I did when I first saw them. They were the absolute zenith of Burne-Jones’s and William Morris’s output. I believe Morris himself said the series of tapestries was his masterwork. Jimmy Page talked to Paul Reeves.
The Holy Grail or San Graal tapestries are a set of six tapestries depicting scenes from the legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. The tapestries were commissioned from Morris & Co. by William Knox D'Arcy in 1890 for his dining room at Stanmore Hall,[1] outside London.[2][3] Additional versions of the tapestries with minor variations were woven on commission by Morris & Co. over the next decade. The six original tapestries illustrate the story of the Grail quest as told in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur. Like other Morris & Co. tapestries, the Holy Grail sequence was a group effort, with overall composition and figures designed by Edward Burne-Jones, heraldry by William Morris, and foreground florals and backgrounds by John Henry Dearle.[2][3] The narrative panels were accompanied by smaller verdure or woodland panels featuring deer, the knights' shields hung on trees, and text telling the story of the panel hung above. The sequence was worked over a period of five years, from 1891 to 1894, at Merton Abbey. The Attainment was the first of the series to be completed, and was shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1893.[2] The six tapestries are: The Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by the Strange Damsel The Arming and Departure of the Knights The Failure of Sir Launcelot to enter the Chapel of the Holy Grail The Failure of Sir Gawaine: Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine at the Ruined Chapel The Ship The Attainment: The Vision of the Holy Grail to Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and Sir Perceval (also known as The Achievement of the Grail or The Achievement of Sir Galahad, accompanied by Sir Bors, and Sir Perceval)[2][3][4] Textile historian Linda Parry wrote of the series "their design, decoration and weaving establish them, beyond doubt, as the most significant tapestry series woven in the nineteenth century."[2] The original set of tapestries remained at Stanmore Hall until D'Arcy's death in 1920. They were subsequently sold and dispersed. Morris & Co. wove a second subset of the narrative panels in 1895 and 1896 for the drawing room at Compton Hall, Lawrence Hodson's seat near Wolverhampton. A third complete set was woven for George McCulloch in 1898 and 1899. Some hangings from these subsequent weavings are in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.[2][5] Others are in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber.[6] The Stanmore Hall weaving of The Attainment was purchased by guitarist Jimmy Page in 1978; the piece failed to meet its reserve at auction in 2008 and remains in Page's collection.[7][8] 1. Stanmore Hall, a Gothic Revival house of the 1840s, stood in Stanmore, Middlesex, northwest of London; commissions at Stanmore are discussed by Susan Moore, "The Marxist and the Oilman: Morris & Co. at Stanmore Hall", Country Life, 178, no. 4604 (14 November 1985:1494-96). 2. Parry (1983), pp. 116–17 3. Wood (1997), pp. 116–18 4. Wildman (1993), p. 308 5. Fairchild and Leary (1981), p. 107-109 6. Guardian accessed May 17, 2010 7. Guardian accessed May 17, 2010 8. The Earthly Paradise accessed May 17, 2010
"This is in some respects the most beautiful of the pictures. The combination of colours is probably more noticeable here than in any other of the series. The grouping of the ladies and mounted knights is admirably given. The effects of the light produced by the use of the silk may also be remarked, Gawain is prominent on the right of the picture, Galahad on the left, both being mounted on horseback." Flowers: Lychnis campanula, Violet, Lily-of-the-valley, Dianthus, Pansy, Daffodil, Primula, Malope, Snowdrop, Genno, Saponaria, Pheasant's eye adonis, Sparaxis, Cynoglossum (Hound's Tongue), Celene-pendula, Hawkweed, Adonis vernale, Oxlip. According to the previous Sotheby's catalogue, under panel No. 2 was the inscription 'How after the damsel had bidden the Knights of the Round Table to seek the Sangrael, they they departed on the bequest whatever might befall. But of those that departed these are the chiefest, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Hector de Marys, Sir Bors de Gaamys, Sir Percival and Sir Galahad.'
Flowers: Lychnis Campanula, Violet, Lily-of-the-Valley, Dianthus, Pansy, Dafodil, Primula, malope, Snowdrop, Genno, Saponaria, Sparaxis, Pheasant's eye, adonis, Cynoglossum (hound's tongue), Celene-pendula, Hawkweed, Adonis vernalis, Oxlip