John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (British artist) 1829 - 1908
Spencer-Stanhope was the second son of Yorkshire landed gentry, he was educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1850 he studied in London with G. F. Watts, through whom he entered the artistic circle at Little Holland House, where he met D. G. Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.Stanhope's close friendship with Burne-Jones proved a more decisive influence on his work that, in the 1860s, consisted of dreamlike poetic and mythological subjects often set in quaint, enclosed spaces, as in I Have Trod the Winepress Alone (c. 1864; London, Tate). Stanhope married in 1859 and moved to Sandroyd, a house near Cobham, Surrey, designed for him by Philip Webb in 1860, but because of severe asthma he wintered abroad from 1865 and in 1880 moved permanently to the Villa Nuti, Bellosguardo, near Florence. Deeply influenced by Italian art, he had his frames made in gilt gesso by Florentine craftsmen and was one of the first British artists to revive tempera painting, adopting it at least as early as 1877 in Eve Tempted (exh. London, Grosvenor Gal. 1877; Manchester, C.A.G.). His later work, marked by strong, frieze-like compositions of Quattrocento-style figures painted in glowing colours, is exemplified in the 12 frescoed panels of ministrations of angels (1872–9; reworked 1880s) at Marlborough College Chapel, Wilts, painted at the suggestion of the architect G. F. Bodley, with whom he was also associated at the Anglican Church, Florence. Spencer-Stanhope was one of the most important followers of Burne-Jones. He was a member of the group of artists which worked on the Oxford Union murals. His style owes a lot to Burne-Jones, yet Stanhope's colour is stronger and less subtle, his drawing is harder and in general the softness and stillness of his master is lacking. His choice of subject-matter and interest in technique is individual. Eve Tempted (1877) is a striking and slightly unnerving interpretation of the serpent in the Garden of Eden whispering into Eve's ear as she stands under the Tree of Knowledge, on a faux-naïf early Renaissance carpet of flowers. Stanhope was in love with the Tuscan landscape and with Florentine art, and spent the latter part of his life in Florence. His niece was the painter Evelyn De Morgan - who often travelled to stay with him in Florence. Stanhope is often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolour, fresco, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary
