"A Dream Princess"

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A Dream Princess

Elizabeth Adela Forbes (1859–1912)

1897

Oil on canvas

H 162 x W 118 cm

Collection: Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro

Accession number: TRURI: 1913.10

Gift from the husband and son of the artist, 1913<>/p>

A young villager sleeps on his arm beside the mill and its busy mill-wheel, perhaps lulled to sleep by the sound of the water. He dreams of a beautiful princess from times long past.... [Commentary continues below.]

Photo credit: Royal Institution of Cornwall. Image downloaded, caption material added and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it and mouse over the text, including Related Material) for links.]

Kindly made available on the the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC BY-ND), via Art UK.

This part-naturalistic, part-fairytale scene illustrates two aspects of Forbes's art. Here, of course, is her love of open-air painting. Pigeons flutter and court on the roof of the old mill, the water wheel turns rhythmically, spewing water at the turn, and a few daffodils are out on the steep grassy bank. Lulled to sleep, the young man resting there wears countryside clothes, complete with cap and jerkin, and is also very much of this world. But — and this is the other aspect of Forbes's artistic vision — he is momentarily removed from it in dream. Forbes shared that love of the medieval that infused the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson and so many others (including architects and designers of all kinds) right through to the end of the century. The princess enchanting the youth in his sleep, in her gorgeous dress and delicately glistening headdress, is a figure straight from Arthurian legend. Cornwall, home to all things Arthurian, is an appropriate setting for such a dream.

According to the entry in Art UK, the youth was a real local figure: the miller at Drift Mills, Richard John Boase Richards. He was also a farmer, and he "died of typhoid and is buried in Sancreed churchyard with a granite millstone as his headstone." But Forbes has granted him a vision that brings his memory back to us today.

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Bibliography

"A Dream Princess." Art UK. 1 March 2021.

Created 1 March 2021