John Reinhard Weguelin
Weguelin emulated the neo-classical style of Edward Poynter and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, painting subjects inspired by classical antiquity and mythology.
He was forgotten following the first World War, as his style of painting fell out of fashion, and he is best remembered as the painter of Lesbia, depicting the fabled muse of the Roman poet Catullus.
His father, William Andrew Weguelin, was Rector of South Stoke,[1][2][3] but was forced to relinquish his position about 1856, when he joined the Tractarian Movement, and became a Roman Catholic.
He also produced illustrations for several books, including the 1881 edition of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, G. A. Henty's The Cat of Bubastes (1889), a volume of poems by Catullus (1893),[5] Hans Christian Andersen's stories in The Little Mermaid and other Tales (1893), and Thomas Stanley's translation of Anacreon (1894).
Kennedy's Fair-haired Slave who made himself a King, and Mr. J.R. Weguelin's Bacchus and the Choir of Nymphs are figure subjects of more realistic intention than the preceding [referring to Mr. Watts' ''Angel of Death''].
He has taken up a class of subject that comparatively few artists attempt, and he has handled it in a long series of very attractive paintings with a charm and distinction that can be sincerely admired.
He has a very pleasing fancy and a delightful sense of style; and his graceful draughtsmanship, his exquisite feeling for delicate harmonies of colour, and his brilliantly direct and expressive brushwork make his productions more than ordinarily important as examples of the judicious application of the water-colour medium.
The Death of the Firstborn, by Mr. Weguelin, shows a young man stretched out stark for the funeral-rites, and his mother (perhaps, rather, his wife) crouched on the ground with her face hidden between her knees; a sufficiently well-conceived treatment, fairly executed, but not to be called intense.
She is widely supposed to have been Clodia, around whom swirled rumors and scandals involving some of the most prominent men at Rome, although no contemporary source makes that identification, and this element of mystery adds to the appeal of both the poems and Weguelin's painting.
Her dark hair is crowned with clustering yellow flowers, the face is utterly asleep, and the right arm flung out straight upon the marble slab behind her well conveys the idea of complete weariness.
The Vintage (1880, oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x 30") was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery with an excerpt from Macaulay's poem, Horatius: And in the vats of Luna/This year the must shall foam/Round the white feet of laughing girls/Whose sires have marched to Rome.
[2][15] It was critiqued in The Gentleman's Magazine, where it was compared with William Britten's The Flight of Helen, with which it was exhibited:Allegory has no place in Mr. Weguelin's canvas; no Venus need smile approval of the feat that is there recorded.
The chief figure is a young woman with a basketful of fresh flowers coming down a marble staircase, holding a bunch of narcissus blossoms up to the nose of a great black Egyptian idol.
In a catalogue of works exhibited at the Royal Academy, a note reads, "During the games celebrated in honour of Here, it was the custom of the young girls of Elis to run in the Olympic stadium, which was shortened for them by one-sixth.
Herodias, whose marriage to Herod Antipas was called illegal by John the Baptist, encourages her beautiful daughter Salome to dance for her stepfather, and demand an oath of him.
The Royal Academy catalogue explains, "In expiation of the death of Erigone, who hung herself, and in imitation of her, the maids of Athens on this day swung themselves from trees, while they sang hymns in her honour.
[3][14][15] A Summer Afternoon (1886, 8 x 10") is a picture of a young woman napping on a pile of cushions on a wide bench, attached to a high wall.
"[15][24] The Captive Wood Nymph (1887) received a diploma of the third order of merit amongst oil and watercolour paintings from the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition.
[25] The Toilet of Faunus, or Adoring the Herm (1887, 20 x 22")[21] was exhibited at the Royal Academy, where it was described as, "girl placing wreaths of purple flowers on Faun's head.
"[2][14][26] The Gardens of Adonis (1888, oil on canvas, 93 x 135 cm)[27] was exhibited at the New Gallery,[2] where it was described: "Light flowing robes of pink purple, green and pale lemon colour; one maiden carries rose wreaths for offerings."
The nymphs have pale draperies of pink, yellow and white; one has ivy in her hair, and another on the left some violet flowers; the sea lies blue below them, flecked with purple shadows; the rocks are grey; the picture is light in color throughout, and delicately harmonised.
[2][28]The painting was exhibited with the anonymous translation, perhaps that of the artist, of the first lines of Horace's Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus vidi docentem (Odes 2.19):"I saw within remotest rocks/ (Believe that read in after time)/Bacchus who taught and nymphs in flocks/Who learnt the lesson of his rhyme.
"[32] Psyche (1890, oil on canvas, 24 x 20")[33] was exhibited at the New Gallery, whose catalogue described it: "small head of a girl, with opal-tinted butterfly wings."
Behind the dark-haired maiden, who stands looking back at her former lover, is the pale-blue sky and the warmer tinted sea, and in full contrast to them a branch of crimson rhododendron which grows out from behind the marble wall.
[2][14] The same year, Weguelin produced sixty-five illustrations for The Little Mermaid and Other Stories, a collection of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.
Venus stands amidst small trees by a shallow pool, gazing at her crying son, who sits on the a cloth on the ground, looking at his wound.
The painting, depicting a young woman before a rustic altar, was pictured and described in The Studio as "draped and decorous, yet impulsive and fresh [...] seen in the gesture of the ancients as they addressed themselves to the celestial gods.
"[40] Pelagia, another watercolour displayed at the same exhibition, is described as a "nude figure...large and firm of contour, gleaming against southern waters".
The Rainbow Lies in the Curve of the Sand (1901)[3] features a mermaid sitting in the midst of a winding stream emptying into the sea across a sandy beach.
[3] A Pastoral (1905, watercolour, 15 x 21") depicts a nude woman, seated at the edge of a small wood with her back to the viewer, playing a flute as sheep graze nearby.
