The Orpheus and Eurydice story held a particular fascination for Charles Ricketts, whose other paintings included such works as Montezuma, Don Juan and The Betrayal of Christ. He was preoccupied with the theme of the tragic hero, left isolated and lonely. His best known sculpture, one of the small bronzes exhibited in the Carfax Gallery in 1906, also represents Orpheus and Eurydice, but at their final parting (a 1905-1906 version is in the Tate Gallery). Orpheus and Eurydice does not represent the more common theme of their separation. When Charles Ricketts was finishing the picture for the 1923 Summer Show at the Royal Academy, he wrote to a friend: The Orpheus and Erudicy - how is her name spelt? - are not in the act of parting. She is a ghost following him in a spring-lit landscape, watched by Hermes. Orpheus and Eurydice is an amalgamation of Charles Ricketts's interests, both antiquarian and personal. His collection of Greek pots, Tanagra figurines, classical sculpture and Greek mythological literature were a constant source of inspiration for his book designs, sculpture and painting. In the early 1920s, contemporary to the present work, he painted the Trojan Women (Manchester City Art Gallery) and Diomed with the Horses of Achilles. Before he painted Orpheus and Eurydice, he had published an essay on Greek dress in The Saturday Review in 1909, and designed several plays requiring Greek costume: Lawrence Binyon's Paris and Oenone (1906), von Hofmannstal's Electra (1908) for Mrs Patrick Campbell and Alcestis, Medea and Iphigenia in Tauris (1920) for Mrs Penelope Wheeler. Sir Edmund Davis (1862-1939), the first owner of the present work, was one of the major British collectors of his generation. Born in Australia and educated in France, he settled in London. His collection of paintings included, among the Old Masters, Rembrandt's Saskia at Her Toilet, three Canalettos, three Van Dycks (including a portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria), several Gainsboroughs, a Velazquez, a Hogarth and a Reynolds. The collection also contained important nineteenth century works, including two of Rossetti's early watercolours, oils by Millais and three important works by Whistler, of which the most famous was At the Piano (exhibited Royal Academy 1860; Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio). It also contained six Rodin sculptures and paintings by Watts, Corot, Boudin and Daumier. Sir Edmund was an important patron of contemporary British art.
Sir Edmund Davis E. P. Bateson
Bradford Art Gallery London, Royal Academy, 1923, Summer Exhibition, number 203 Manchester, 1933, Works by Orpen, McEvoy, Ricketts, number 76 London, Royal Academy, 1933, Commemorative Exhibition of the Works of Late Members, number 339