corners of Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries

It was hard pulling myself away from my overnight stay (and its gardens - if you zoom into this archway picture you can see a chef picking herbs and vegetables for dinner) - but the main purpose of my being in Leamington Spa at all was the "Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries: British Art 1880-1930" show in the Art Galleries - which are in the old therapeutic baths building.  It's a small show, but a great assemblage of paintings one doesn't usually get to see - lots of Frederick Cayley Robinson, which are held in Leamington Spa; a good number of things from the Tate that aren't normally on display (especially some Rossettis); and an assortment of others.  As usual, I offer you some stray corners ...

... from Walter Crane, Love's Altar, 1870

Of course there have to be some Pickering De Morgans - her Queen Eleanor and the Fair Rosamund, c.1880-1919, is truly weird;

and as ever there were some memorable feet: Frank Cadogan Cowper, St Agnes in Prison Receiving from Heaven the 'Shining White Garment', 1905,

and De Morgan again, Evening Star Over the Sea, prob. 1910-1914.

Here's a very solemn Fate, spinning: John Melhuish Strudwick, A Golden Thread, 1885;

and two bits from Cayley Robinson's The Close of the Day - a music box playing Mendelssohn's "Song without Words,"

and a young woman mesemerized by it.

But perhaps my favorite piece of all was a tiny enamel-on-copper plaque by May Hart Partridge, from c.1904 - it looks like a fairly standard Madonna and Child, until you realise that they are both in contemporary dress, and sitting pensively in a railway carriage.

I'd have much more to say if it wasn't already half-past-midnight: but there's an excellent catalogue with essays by all the usual suspects, with great reproductions and very full entries on all the works.  It was absolutely worth the trip!