Charles March Gere (British, 1869-1957) The Lady of Grey Days

Charles March Gere (British, 1869-1957) The Lady of Grey Days signed with monogram and dated '97' (lower left) gouache 42.5 x 32cm (16 3/4 x 12 5/8in). Footnotes: Provenance Probably purchased circa 1897 by George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, Naworth Castle, Cumbria. Gifted by Rosalind, Dowager Countess of Carlisle, to her daughter, Lady Aurea Macleod, 4 October 1912. Norham House, Cockermouth, Cumbria. With Hartnoll & Eyre, London, October 1972. Exhibition London, The Barbican Art Gallery, The Last Romantics, The Romantic Tradition in British Art, Burne-Jones to Stanley Spencer, 1989, no. 91. Literature Exh. cat., ed. John Christian, The Last Romantics, The Romantic Tradition in British Art, Burne-Jones to Stanley Spencer, London, 1989, cat. no. 91, pp. 110-111, illustrated. Country Life, 2 February 1989, p. 76, illustrated. Martin Harrison and Bill Waters, Burne-Jones, London, 1979, no. 279, p. 185, illustrated. The Lady of Grey Days was one of the stand-out exhibits included in the highly-important exhibition The Last Romantics in 1989, an exhibition which brought together many famous and forgotten artists who had been inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites long after the dimming of the glare of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It featured on the advertising poster for the exhibition, displayed on many underground stations in London and was well-admired by many who saw the exhibition. However, few at that time would have heard of the artist who painted it, Charles March Gere. Charles March Gere was born in Gloucester and spent most of his life in the Cotswolds, living from 1904 with his half-sister near Painswick Stroud. It was his time as a student and teacher at the Birmingham School of Art that was most formative and he became one of the Birmingham Group of artists, whose best-known collaboration was the decoration of Birmingham Town Hall around 1900. Many of this group of radical artists and teachers were inspired by the work of fellow Birmingham-born artist Edward Burne-Jones whose influence can be seen in The Lady of Grey Days. Like several of the artists of this group, Gere was talented in book-illustration, embroidery design, jewellery, stained-glass and metal-work. He later concentrated on landscape painting and his figurative pictures are rare, although he exhibited widely at the New Gallery, Society of Painters in Tempera, the New English Art Club and Art Worker's Guild as well as the more main-stream Royal Academy and Royal Watercolour Society. A young woman in a silk medieval-style gown is carrying a silver chalice from which is spilling a few drops of liquid. It is clear like spring water rather than wine-dark like the potion-laced wine of Circe or Iseult. Perhaps she is the Damsel of the Sacred Grail painted by Rossetti and Burne-Jones, the guardian of the object of the quest of the Knights of the Round Table. Or perhaps she is intended to be a spirit of nature, whose cup contains the morning dew of a summer day. She is melancholic – as so many Pre-Raphaelite maidens are – and the presence of the swallows, synonymous with the sunshine of summer perhaps suggests that she is an allegory of sadness amid joy. The enigmatic nature of the painting is emphasised by the obtuse title, The Lady of Grey Days, the source of which is not known. According to a label on the reverse of The Lady of Grey Days, it was given in 1912 by Rosalind, Dowager Countess of Carlisle to her youngest daughter Lady Aurea Macleod (1884-1972). Rosalind's husband, George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle was a talented artist and avid patron. He bought pictures by his contemporaries, Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Arthur Hughes but also supported the younger generation, including John Byam-Shaw, Charles Holroyd Henry Justice Ford and John Batten. Howard was also involved in the decoration of the East Corridor of the Palace of Westminster to which Gere's brother-in-law Arthur Payne also contributed. It seems likely that The Lady of Grey Days had been purchased by George Howard and given by his widow to her daughter following George's death in 1911 when Rosalind moved from Naworth Castle in Cumbria to a smaller residence nearby, Boothby. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * AR * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing