Study for Antigone

Details

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)
Study for Antigone
signed and inscribed 'Study for/Antigone/F. Sandys.' (centre left)
pencil, black, red and white chalk
19¾ x 15 3/8 in. (50.2 x 39.1 cm.)

Provenance

Theodore Rossi, 1883.
Lt. Col. Edward S. Trafford, Wroxham Hall, 1905.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 13 December 2005, lot 16.

Literature

B. Elzea, Frederick Sandys, 1829-1904: A Catalogue Raisonné, Suffolk, 2001, p. 260, cat. 4.3., as untraced.

Exhibited

Norwich, Fine Art Exhibition in aid of the new Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, 20-25 August 1883, E. 16, as 'Head of Antigone', lent by Theodore Rossi.
Norwich, Norwich Art Circle, 45th Exhibition, including some work by the late F. A. Sandys, May 1905, no. 72, as 'Head of Antigone', lent by E. S. Trafford.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

In a letter dated 10 July 1880 Sandys wrote to his agent Charles Augustus Howell about two unfinished drawings that he was working on of Faustine and Antigone saying that 'they are the two best drawings I have ever done...' (MS letter, John Rylands University Library, Manchester).

Antigone was the daughter of the incestuous marriage between King Oedipus of Thebes and his mother Jocasta and was imprisoned in a tower by her uncle King Creon, but liberated by her cousin Haemon. Her tragic story was dramatised by the ancient dramatists Sophocles and Euripides.

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