English painter Evelyn De Morgan (Mary Evelyn Pickering) features legendary Pre-Raphaelite muse Jane Morris (Jane Burden) who came out of "retirement" to pose for De Morgan including this thematic painting of a regal woman sitting pensively on an ornate throne, touching an hourglass, while an angelic figure plays a flute in a doorway, hinting at the passage of time and the fleeting nature of life.
In 1924, De Morgan's sister British writer Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Stirling (aka Wilhelmina Stirling and the alias Percival Pickering), wrote that De Morgan identified the painting as "an echo of a movement in the Waldstein Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 21) of Beethoven." This is her description:
"In an ancient chair, inlaid with ivory, a woman is seen seated. Behind her on the wall are glowing tapestries; a gold lamp of medieval design is suspended above her head. Her draperies, in wonderful hues of yellow and russet bronze, are thickly sewn with pearls, the delineation of which in correct perspective constituted a tour de force. Jewels of barbaric design accentuate the richness of her attire and gleam again from her quaint head-dress, beneath which shows the first indication of age -- her whitening locks. Meanwhile, with a brooding sorrow, her gaze is fixed upon an hourglass, clasped in her slender fingers, wherein the sands are swiftly running out: at her feet is a dying rose, and close to her lies a book on which are visible the words -- Mos Janua Vitae -- Death is the portal of life. So, too, unheeded by her, outside the open doorway stands the figure of life, the Immortal, piping joyously in the sunlight in robes of azure amid the blossoming flowers of spring."
Jane Morris was an accomplished English embroiderer in the Arts and Crafts movement, but is fondly remembered as the model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty as the muse for 20 Dante Gabriel Rossetti paintings. She was also the model for De Morgan's popular 1903 "The Love Potion" painting.
"The Hourglass" by Evelyn De Morgan (English) - Oil on canvas / 1904-1905 - De Morgan Foundation (Barnsley, England) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #WomensArt #artText #FemaleArtist #WomenPaintingWomen #EnglishArtist #WomenArtists #EvelynDeMorgan #DeMorgan #DeMorganCollection #EnglishArt #JaneMorris
