‘Bhanavar among the Serpents,’ by Frederick Sandys

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Bhanavar among the Serpents

Frederick Sandys

1865

Steel etching by John Saddler

5 x 3¼ inches

Pictorial frontispiece for George Meredith’s The Shaving of Shagpat. London: Chapman & Hall, 1865.

This bizarre image illustrates the moment when Bhanavar, the ‘wondrous beauty’ (88) and Queen of the Serpents,’ is overwhelmed by the snakes’ ‘hiss and scream’ (87). [Commentary continues below. Mouse over the text for links.]

Sandys's original watercolour

George Meredith and His Illustrators

Overview of Meredith's work, including discussions of Shagpat

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke. [Click on image to enlarge it.] From the collection of Paul Goldman.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

This is the only design that Sandys published in the form of an etching rather than a wood-engraving, but the imagery is typical of his focus on women in psychological crisis; it also reaffirms the eroticism of much of his art. As usual, Sandys’s draughtsmanship is of the highest quality, and his emphasis on swirling lines – in the snakes’ curling and in the movement of the draperies – is a clear prefiguration of the sinuousness of Art Nouveau. The delicate detailing of the serpent’s patterns adds another dimension which is privileged by Saddler’s accomplished engraving on steel.

Created 7 November 2024