Dante Gabriel Rossetti Sir Tristram and la Belle Ysoude stained glass

William Morris Guinevere and Iseult - cartoon for stained glass 1862

The Tristram and Isoude stained glass panels are a series of 13 small stained-glass windows made in 1862 by Morris, Marshall, Faulker & Co. for Harden Grange, the house of textile merchant Walter Dunlop, near

Bingley Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 Census. Bingley railwa ...

in Yorkshire, England. Depicting the legend of

Tristan and Iseult Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illic ...

, they were designed by six of the leading

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

artists of the day, to an overall design by

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

. They were acquired in 1917 by Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, which is now part of Bradford Museums & Galleries. They can be seen on display at Cliffe Castle, Keighley.

Details

The 13 smallThe panels average 68 x 60.5 cm; Poulson, Christine, "'That Most Beautiful of Dreams': Tristram and Isoude in British Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries". In Grimbert (2002), p. 339 stained-glass panels depict scenes from the story of Sir Tristram and la Belle Isoude as told in Sir

Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Ar ...

's ''

Morte d'Arthur ' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Rou ...

''.Wroot (1917), p. 69Poulson, pp. 338-339Lawson (1985) They were commissioned by Walter Dunlop, a Bradford textile merchant, for a new music room to be built at Harden Grange, his house near Bingley, Yorkshire, and were designed and executed in 1862 by Morris, Marshall, Faulker & Co., the

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

firm established the year before by the

artist

in partnership with

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painti ...

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

, Charles Faulkner and Peter Paul Marshall.Harvey & Press (1991), p. 38 This was the firm's first commission for windows for a private residence, or with a non-ecclesiastical subject, and Morris provided Dunlop with a hand-written programme for the proposed work headed "Short abstract of the Romance of Tristram", with marginal annotations suggesting the pictorial possibilities of the story. To design the cartoons or preparatory drawings for the individual panels, Morris turned to four of the artists who had worked with him in 1857 on another project based on the

Arthurian legend The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...

as retold by Malory, the

Oxford Union murals The Oxford Union murals (1857–1859) are a series of mural decorations in the Oxford Union library building. The series was executed by a team of Pre-Raphaelite artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. T ...

—Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Val Prinsep and Arthur Hughes—plus his partner Madox Brown.Wroot (1917), p. 73 Morris himself designed four of the 13 panels and maintained the cohesiveness of the series through his overall design, matching text blocks, placement of the lead lines, and selection of colours, including deep ruby-reds and olive greens.Wroot (1917), p. 73 The subjects of the 13 panels and their designers are:Wroot (1917), pp. 69-73 # The Birth of Sir Tristram (Hughes) # The Fight between Sir Tristram and Sir Marhaus (Rossetti) # The Departure of Tristram and Isoude from Ireland (Prinsep) # Tristram and Isoude drink the Love Potion (Rossetti) # The Marriage of Tristram and Isoude Les Blanches Mains (Burne-Jones) # The Madness of Tristram (Burne-Jones) # The Attempted Suicide of La Belle Isoude (Burne-Jones) # The Recognition of Tristram by La Belle Isoude (Burne-Jones) # At the Court of King Arthur (Morris) #

King Mark Mark of Cornwall ( la, Marcus, kw, Margh, cy, March, br, Marc'h) was a sixth-century King of Kernow (Cornwall), possibly identical with King Conomor. He is best known for his appearance in Arthurian legend as the uncle of Tristan and the husb ...

slays Tristram (Madox Brown) # The Tomb of Tristram and Isoude (Burne-Jones) # Queen

Guenevere Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First men ...

and Isoude Les Blanches Mains (Morris) # King Arthur and Sir Launcelot (Morris) The Tristram and Isoude windows were acquired by the Bradford Art Gallery in 1917, along with documentation relating to the subject matter of the panels and their installation, including the "Short abstract". They can be seen on display at Cliffe Castle, Keighley.

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{Dante Gabriel Rossetti Pre-Raphaelite artworks Stained glass windows Arthurian art Tourist attractions in the City of Bradford Morris & Co.