Lot 128: Francis John Wyburd (British 1826-1923)

Medora
signed with initials 'FjW' (lower right), also signed and inscribed 'Medora/The tender blue of that large/loving eye./grew frozen with its gaze/on vacancy'/The Corsair'/By F.Wyburd' on old label on reverse
oil on board
31 x 23.5 cm. (12 x 9 1/4 in.)
oval

Royal Academy 1846, No. 1205.

In response to the contemporary taste for Oriental subjects, Francis Wyburd sought inspiration for many of his best-known paintings from second-hand accounts and literary narratives of the Empire's most exotic countries. With Medora, Wyburd knew he was striking a vibrant cord with the Romantic spirit of his Victorian viewers.

Born in 1826, Francis John Wyburd had received a French education in the Northern town of Lille. He appears to have begun his artistic training under the guidance Thomas Fairland, the lithographer.
Having been awarded a Silver Medal at the Society of Arts, Wyburd had entered the Royal Academy schools in 1848. However, his first exhibit at the Royal Academy was Medora which was hung two years earlier in 1846.

Over the next ten years, Wyburd developed an elegant painterly style which was well adapted to the 'fancy pictures' in which he specialised. Indeed, the artist's detailed accounts of exotic interiors, and his refined representations of female beauties, earned him particular success among the artistic circles of his time. In 1858, Wyburd accompanied his fellow artist George Edwards Hering (1805-1879) on a journey to Northern Italy and the Tyrol. The numerous sketches made during this visit lead Wyburd to diversify his subject matter and introduce an underlying tone of religious sentimentality.
Wyburd continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1889; whilst also regularly contributing to exhibitions at the British Institution and The Society of British Artists until his death, in 1893.
As his first entry at the Royal Academy exhibition, Wyburd chose the well-known and well-loved character of Medora, the faithfully resigned maiden of Lord Byron's poetic ballad The Corsair. By the time Wyburd had decided upon the subject for his new painting, around 1846, The Corsair was already one of the most celebrated pieces of Victorian literature.
Romantic in mood and Orientalist in setting, The Corsair received immediate acclaim from the day of its first publication, on 1 February 1814. Indeed, according to Byron's publisher John Murray, no less than 10,000 copies of the text had been sold on the first day. Princess Caroline, daughter of the Prince Regent could be counted among the wide reading public of Byron's poem. Commenting on the success of this first publication in her recent biography of Lord Byron, historian Fiona MacCarthy explains: "Above all, The Corsair was attractive to its readers in giving far-off places a new immediacy. It made the legendary live again..."
The story unfolds in three canti - each of seventeen, sixteen and twenty-four sonnets respectively - an episode from the life of Conrad, the 'pirate-captain'. Held captive in the palace of Seyd, the great Turkish pasha of a neighbouring island, Conrad falls in love with Gulnare, the despot's young and beautiful chief slave (Canto II). Conrad's magnanimous efforts to free Gulnare and his subsequent escape from Seyd's palace with her are later overshadowed by his return to his native island where he hopes to find Medora, his first-love (Canto III). There, however, Conrad discovers that Medora's sorrowful longing for his return has resulted in her premature death (Canto III, sonnet XX).

The image of Medora offered in Wyburd's painting presents that of a beautiful young woman quietly awaiting the return of her pirate-captain. Her expression is caught in an intense moment of inner turmoil: "The tender blue of that large loving eye / Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancy, / Till - Oh, how far! - it caught a glimpse of him, / And then it flow'd - and phrensied seem'd to swim / Through those long, dark, and glistening lashes dew'd / With drops of sadness oft to be renew'd. / 'He's gone!' - against her heart that hand is driven, / Convulsed and quick - then gently raised to heaven; / ...But turn'd with sickening soul within the gate - / 'It is no dream - and I am desolate!' "(Canto I, sonnet XV, lines 493-504).
Behind the figure of Medora, visible in the background, the Pasha's palace surges into the skies with its towering turret holding Conrad captive: "In the high chamber of his highest tower / Sate Conrad, fetter'd in the Pacha's power." (Canto II, sonnet XI, lines 366-367).
In Wyburd's representation, the palace hovers in the background, but for Medora, this is reality and gradually the fair maiden's strength filters away. Grief-stricken, she looses the ability to fight the idea of Conrad's doom, an image her vivid imagination has fixed upon during the solitary days spent waiting for his return (Canto II, sonnet III). Wyburd's delicate handling of Medora's head - the golden hair outlining the pure Aegean profile, the crimson-red velvet of the dress and the glittering gold of the adorning jewels - offers one of the most compelling images of Byron's embodiment of the Western concept of eternal love in the attire of an Eastern maiden.

For a comprehensive discussion on Byron's Corsair, see: chapter 4: "Byron's 'Turkish Tales' and Realistic Orientalism" in: Mohammed Sharafuddin, Islam and Romantic Idealism. Literary encounters with the Orient, London & New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, pp. 214-274

1. Fiona MacCarthy, Byron, Life and Legend, London: John Murray, 2002, p.216