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Description: signed and inscribed on original backboard: SABRINA/"-Still she retains/Her maiden gentleness and oft at ere/Visits the herds along the twilight meadows" Samuel Palmer/Furze Hill House/Mead Vale/Red Hill/Surrey

watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic, with pencil margins

PROVENANCE

W.A.Smith, Colebrooke Park, Tunbridge;
Cradlecall Ltd., London;
Stanley J.Seeger, acquired from the above on 21st November 1993, his sale in these Rooms, 14th June 2001, lot 34
CATALOGUE NOTE

The present watercolour is based on Milton's Comus and illustrated the story of the 'gentle nymph' Sabrina visiting her herds at twilight. Palmer was greatly inspired by the poetry of John Milton, as Raymond Lister reveals 'Seldom has a painter loved and understood a poet as Palmer loved and understood Milton. (see Catalogue Rainsonne of the Works of Samuel Palmer, 1988, p.8). Palmer draws upon the Welsh setting of Milton's pastoral tale and depicts 'the rushy-fringed bank/ Where grows the Willow and the Osier dark' (Comus III, lines 889-891) of the River Severn. Sabrina, goddess of the river, can be seen walking along the right bank with her herd of cattle watering close by. The intense colours of the sunset and idealised quality of the landscape give this watercolour an unearthly appearance which reinforces the spiritual nature of the subject matter.
Comus was a masque presented at Ludlow Castle before the Earl of Bridgewater in 1634 and was later published anonymously in 1637. In the tale Sabrina is summoned by a heavenly spirit to release the female protagonist, know as 'The Lady', from a magical chair symbolic of her earthly desires. Sabrina, the spirit of innocence and chastity, frees her from the chair before descending back into the river.
From 1855-6 Palmer worked on a number of illustrations for Milton's Comus. Two other watercolours depicting the story of Sabrina are known to exist (See Raymond Lister, Catalogue Rainsonne of the Works of Samuel Palmer, 1988, Nos M5 & M6). The composition of these watercolours is entirely different from that in the present work and although Welsh in setting, they are looser is style and more subdued in colour. Other illustrations include The Brothers in Comus Lingering Under the Vine, sold in these Rooms on 20th November 1986 (lot 98) for £58,000 and The Brothers Guided by the Attendant Spirit discover the Palace and Bowers of Comus, sold in these Rooms on 19th November 1987 (lot 144) for £50,000. Both these watercolours were purchased from Palmer by John Ruskin's solicitor, Leonard Rowe Valpy.
In 1864, almost a decade after the Comus watercolours, Valpy commissioned from Palmer a series of illustrations for Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. These two projects clearly meant a great deal to Palmer and he worked on them for the rest of his life, as he wrote in a letter to his patron: 'I loved the subjects and was willing to be a loser in all but the higher matters of Art and friendship' (Raymond Lister, ed., The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Vol II, p.965)

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Dimensions: 16.5 by 23.5 cm., 6 1/2 by 9 1/4 in.