EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY

While working at Yale University Art Gallery, I had the privilege to digitally archive the largest collection of Abbey pastels bequeathed to the university's collection in 1937. These amazing illustrations were so delicate and fragile, they were only handled by one conservationist who was hired specially for the job.

Born on April 1, 1852 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the American artist was also an illustrator and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects.

Moving to England in 1878, Abbey was made a full member of the Royal Academy in 1898. In 1907 he declined an offer of knighthood in order to retain his U.S. citizenship. Friendly with other expatriate American artists, he summered at Broadway, Worcestershire, England, where he painted and vacationed alongside John Singer Sargent at the home of Francis Davis Millet.

The sensation of the 1896 Royal Academy exhibition in London, this scene from Shakespeare’s Richard III shows the villainous, humpbacked Richard proposing to Lady Anne, Henry VI's widowed daughter-in-law, as she walks in the late king's funeral procession. Swathed in a sheer black veil and wearing a gown stiff with heraldic embroidery, she is accompanied by Richard's two young nephews and black-cloaked, halberd-bearing honor guards, their halberds reversed as a sign of mourning. Shortly before the moment depicted, Anne has heaped curses on Richard for having brutally stabbed to death both her father-in-law and her husband, Edward, Prince of Wales. Undaunted, the fawning Richard praises her extravagantly, asserting that he killed them in order to get near her, and offers to let her kill him, or to kill himself with the unsheathed sword that he holds up. But instead of plunging it into his breast, as she asks, he offers her a wedding ring. She will later succumb to his flattery and declarations of remorse, and accept his proposal. In doing so, she will bring on intrigues that ultimately result in her death.

Edwin Austin Abbey (American, 1852–1911)
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne, 1896
Oil on canvas, 52 5/8 x 104 3/8 in. (133.7 x 265.1 cm)
Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Collection
1937.2224