Date: Fri 24-Jul-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Delaware-Art-Museum-Morris-Chr

Full Text:

A Pre-Raphaelite Trove/Sidebar

(W/One Cut)

By Stephen May

WILMINGTON, DEL. -- In 1856-1857, with the help of their mentor Rossetti,

Burne-Jones and Morris created for their quarters in London's Red Lion Square

a suite of personally designed and embellished furnishings that reflected

their Pre-Raphaelite interest in the melding of painting, decoration, and

literary sources. This summer the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington unveiled

an extraordinary pair of medieval-style chairs that resulted from this unique

Arts and Crafts collaboration.

Purchased by the museum last year at Christie's in London for $554,112, the

two chairs had not been seen in public for 130 years. For decades they graced

the Detroit home of the Heathcote family, descendants of the original English

owner who bought them from Morris in 1866. Imaginatively carved and

extravagantly painted (more likely by Morris and Rossetti than Burne-Jones),

they feature scenes of the noble Sir Galahad and golden-haired Gwendolen.

Assembled by a wealthy Wilmingtonian and since augmented by the museum, it is

the finest such holding in the country. The works are beautifully displayed in

subdued galleries with Morris wallpapers.

On October 16 the Delaware Art Museum is hosting a symposium on Pre-Raphaelite

art and related Nineteenth-Century British decorative arts. Telephone

302/571-9590.