Lot 41: Isaac Rosenberg (British, 1890-1918) The Murder of Lorenzo (unframed)

Isaac Rosenberg
(British, 1890-1918)
The Murder of Lorenzo oil on board30.5 x 25cm (12 x 9 13/16in).(unframed)Painted in 1912

Provenance: Mrs Robert Solomon, by 1951Ben Uri Art Society, London, by 1975Private Collection, U.K.ExhibitedLondon, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Summer Exhibition, Twentieth Century Art - A Review of Modern Movements, 8 May-20 June 1914, cat.no.273London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Isaac Rosenberg, Memorial Exhibition of Paintings & Drawings, 22 June-17 July 1937, cat.no.5London, Ben Uri Art Gallery, Festival of Britain; Anglo-Jewish Exhibition 1851-1951, 9 July-3 August 1951, cat.no.68Leeds, Brotherton Gallery, Isaac Rosenberg, May-June 1959, cat.no.19London, The National Book League, Isaac Rosenberg, 1890-1918: A Poet & Painter of the First World War, 19 August-5 September 1975, cat.no.48 (ill.b&w pl.9)London, Campbell & Franks (Fine Arts) Ltd, Art From The East End 1900-1976, 6-29 May 1976, cat.no.70 LiteratureJoseph Cohen, Journey to the Trenches, The Life of Isaac Rosenberg 1890-1918, Robson Books, London, 1975, p.103Ian Parsons (ed.), The Collected Works of Isaac Rosenberg, Chatto and Windus, London, 1984, (col.ill. pl.IX)Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Isaac Rosenberg, The Making of a Great War Poet, A New Life, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 2007, cat.no.37, pp.148, 225, 447 (col.ill)In 1911, Isaac Rosenberg won a place and sponsorship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, and joined the school at an extraordinary time in its history. Born to Jewish immigrant parents, originally from Russia, the Rosenberg family moved from Bristol to Stepney in East London in 1897. He showed artistic promise from a young age, attending art lessons at various schools in the city. Rosenberg then met Lily Delissa Joseph in a chance encounter at the National Gallery, who arranged alongside two friends to sponsor his study at the Slade. Here, Rosenberg joined a group of incredibly talented young contemporaries, including Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, David Bomberg, C.R.W. Nevinson, William Roberts, Dora Carrington and Paul Nash. Henry Tonks, then Professor of drawing at the Slade, would describe this group as responsible for the school's 'second and last crisis of brilliance'; the first being the period between 1893-1901 when the young and gifted students had numbered among them Harold Gilman, Spencer Gore, Gwen and Augustus John, Percy Wyndham Lewis and William Orpen.Both The Murder of Lorenzo and London Park (lot 42) were painted during Rosenberg's time at the Slade. The Murder of Lorenzo is of special significance in demonstrating the young Artist's interest and engagement in both poetry and the arts. Signing up to fight in the First World War, he served between 1915 and 1918, and died at the battle of Arras on 1 April 1918. His poems, such as Break Of Day In The Trenches, Dead Man's Dump and Returning, We Hear The Larks, are today considered to be some of the finest war poetry which emerged from the conflict.The present work takes inspiration from John Keats' poem Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil of 1818. Extremely well-versed in the work of the Romantic poets, Keats was to prove a major influence in both a literary and artistic sense; Joseph Cohen remarks that 'Rosenberg devoured Keats', whilst also reading avidly the work of Byron and, to a lesser extent, Shelley (Joseph Cohen, Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg 1890-1918, Robson Books, London, 1992, p.30). The poem, which is adapted from a story in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, tells the tale of a young woman whose family hope for her to marry 'some high noble and his olive trees', but who falls for unsuitable Lorenzo, an employee of one of her brothers. On learning of this, the brothers murder their sister's suitor, and bury his body. Lorenzo's ghost informs Isabella of his murder; she then exhumes the body, burying the head in a pot of basil which she tends obsessively, whilst mourning her loss. The present work is therefore a rare example showing the two passions of the young Artist, painting and poetry, intertwining at a formative moment in his life. It displays an increasing confidence and fluidity, the figures rendered with a convincing dynamism. It hints at the promise of what might have been realised in a man so full of passion and brilliance, a talent forged in the environment of that exceptional class at the Slade, only to be extinguished by the First World War.