John Roddam Spencer Stanhope: Faith, Grief and Angels. Lecture given by Simon Poe

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON LECTURE.

On 23rd February 1867 Stanhope’s only child, seven year old Mary, died in Florence of scarlet fever, followed just three weeks later by his youngest sister, Louisa, who died at the family home - Cannon Hall in Yorkshire - aged only thirty-six. The shock of this double bereavement seems to have had a permanent effect on him and is reflected in his paintings. We will look particularly at two of his best but lesser-known works, the suite of twelve large pictures of angles in the chapel at Marlborough College, and the great lost altarpiece he painted for Holy Trinity, Florence, which only survives in a set of photographs that he commissioned himself.

After a chequered career as a youth-worker, artist-printmaker, part-time lecturer, freelance journalist and museum attendant, Simon Poe has retired. He researched John Roddam Spencer Stanhope for his MA.