Enid the Fair

The present bust of Enid is believed to be inspired by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's series of narrative poems Idylls of the King (1859), which recounts the legend of King Arthur including a poem based on the tale of Geraint and Enid from the Mabinogion. A key figure in the repopularized Arthurian iconography of the Victorian period, in Tennyson's retelling Enid serves as a virtuous and devoted foil to the adultrous and lascivious wives of the great men of the Round Table. Frampton's first portrayal of Enid appeared as one of the nine relief panels depicting the heroines of the Arthurian legends set into a mahogany door at Astor House, circa 1895-96. The artist returned to the subject Enid nearly a decade later with the present bust, the bronze example of which was first exhibited in 1908 at the Royal Academy (no. 1930).