John Keats - Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil

Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil
(completed in 1818)

A Story from Boccaccio

LIII.
And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells where waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when the day was done,
And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore,
And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.


LIV.
And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.


LV.
O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,
Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!
Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;
Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,
And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,
Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.

Lines 417- 440

1. William Holman Hunt
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1867
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne

An interesting posting -
http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/?p=41

2. John William Waterhouse
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1907
Private collection

3. Henrietta Rae
Isabella
"Reproduced in colour in 'Henrietta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normand)' by Arthur Fish, Cassell and Company, 1905." - Courtesy ArtMagick

4. Arthur Trevethin Nowell
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1904
Museo de Arte de Ponce
The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
Ponce, Puerto Rico
(Thank you to ArtMagick for sharing information about this work.)
http://www.arthurnowell.com/

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Keats-Shelley House, Rome - Link
http://www.keats-shelley-house.org/en/romanticism

Four Keats Poems and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision of the Middle Ages
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dgr/bottai1.html

Introduction to Keats
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/keats.html

The complete poem - Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil

J. W. Waterhouse - Isabella and the Pot of Basil

John William Waterhouse's painting, Isabella and the Pot of Basil, is shown above the fireplace in Rod Stewart's Beverly Hills mansion master suite. The lovely photograph (photo by Mary E. Nichols) is from a 2007 Architectural Digest piece. Link
(Link to beginning of photographs from the Digest.)

“I would give anything to work at Sotheby’s,” says Stewart, who—fame aside—is a collector like any other collector. He reads auction catalogues in bed. He frets about running out of space. He always has his eye on something, though he has learned to bid with caution and from a distance. “It’s so-o-o addictive,” he says. ... The collection that gives Stewart the most pleasure is his Pre-Raphaelite paintings, which he believes to be one of the largest in the world. The heroes and heroines of his canvases are caught in various late-Victorian states of ecstasy, many of them, the singer explains, “based on the poems of Keats and Tennyson.” About a third of the collection is hung here, most dramatically on the split entrance hall stair, paintings of women on one side and couples on the other. He reminds us, "You have no idea how big those paintings are until you’re standing next to them." - Link to the text of the Architectural Digest article this is taken from.

image courtesy ArtMagick
@ http://www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com/home/

On page 193 of Peter Trippi's 2002 Waterhouse monograph, it is written that Isabella and the Pot of Basil was "unlocated" at that time.

I checked this yesterday after reading a blog posting by Alison Flood about a recent fundraising event for the Keats-Shelley house in Rome.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/mar/18/keats-shelley-house

In the posting, Alison shares something Catherine Payling, curator of the Keats-Shelley House, told her. While "searching for the whereabouts of John William Waterhouse's painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil, based on Keats's poem of the same name, she was pointed towards, of all people, Rod Stewart. An eagle-eyed expert had spotted what appears to be the painting, hanging in Stewart's Beverley Hills mansion, in an "at home" feature the singer did with Architectural Digest [May 2007]."

Alison wrote, "Whether or not it turns out to be the original remains to be seen ..."

Today ArtMagick confirmed that it is: "per Peter Trippi, Waterhouse's biographer, as far as he is aware, the original painting 'Isabella' is indeed in Rod Stewart's collection."

The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907. Anthony Hobson shared the following about the painting in his 1980 publication. It first became part of the H. W. Henderson collection. (H. W. was the brother of Alexander Henderson - http://www.buscot-park.com/frameset5.html) (Also see about halfway down this page from Julia Kerr for information about the Hendersons.) The painting was purchased in 1948 by Gooden & Fox for 35gn. at a Christie's auction. A "Mrs Wigan" is then listed in the provenance - I believe this is Aline Henderson, H. W. Henderson's daughter. She married John Tyson Wigan in 1911. The painting appeared at Christie's again in 1967 and became part of the Lord Lambton collection. In 1971 it was shown at Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield UK as part of a Burne-Jones exhibition.