Newsletter No.5 Easter 2016
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Welcome to “The Friends” Newsletter No.5 Easter 2016 EVENTS SPONSORED BY THE FRIENDS OF ST MARTINS Throughout the summer Free Guided One Hour Tours of the Church take place at 10.30 am every Tuesday Morning. They commence on Tuesday 3rd May and the final tour of the year will be on Tuesday 27th September. Private tours can be arranged for groups at a convenient time to all for a donation to The Friends. To arrange this please contact Mike on 07554 070 205. Last minute cancellations. Should we have to cancel a tour due to unforeseen circumstances then notification will be published on this page of the website. 7pm Good Friday 25th March Stainer’s Crucifixion performed by choir drawn from all the local churches and beyond. 3pm Holy Saturday 26th March Easter Event A short talk on how Easter is revealed through pre-Raphaelite art and stained glass in St. Martin's Church, followed by wine and Simnel cake. Entrance £3 on the door, free to Friends. 9th July Dedication Service Day: 11.15 - 11.45 Talk about the opening of the church in 1863 by Mike Bortoft 12.00 Dedication Mass followed at 1.00 (approx) Lunch with a glass of wine or fruit juice. All invited Organ Recital dates: Each one will take place on a Friday evening at 7-00pm. Friday 6th May Edward Hewes Royal Academy of Music, London. Friday 3rd June Geoffrey Coffin Principal Pipe Organs York. Friday 1st July Colin Walsh Organist Laureate Lincoln Cathedral. Friday 15th July David Pipe. York Minster and Leeds Cathedral. Friday 2nd Sept Philip Moore Organist Emeritus York Minster, and President of The Royal College of Organists. Admission to each of these recitals will be £6. Refreshments will be served by the Friends of St Martin's at the end, when there will be an opportunity to meet each organist. Finally, an apology for the tardiness in publishing this newsletter due to an extended break in Australasia. Mike Bortoft 14th March 2016. Contents: Page 3: What’s in a Window? No 4 The Dorothea and Theophilus Window by Burne-Jones Page 8: Burne-Jones’ pursuit of love, an article by Fiona MacCarthy Page12: A Very Victorian Melodrama – The near death of The Prince of Wales 1872 and the how the celebration of his recovery is commemorated in St. Martin’s Church. Page 16: George Fredrick Bodley – The Early Years 2 What’s in a Window? No 4 The Dorothea and Theophilus Window by Burne-Jones Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833 - 1898 (See the window on our website at: http://www.friendsofstmartins.co.uk/Window15.html) This striking window is located on the south aisle closest to the main entrance. The story of Dorothea and Theophilus is typical of the pre-Raphaelite’s attachment to heroic or tragic dramas: St. Theophilus the Lawyer, from the 4th century, was trying cases before the Roman Courts in Caesarea, a seaside town on the modern day Israeli coast. Caesarea was the seat of the Roman province of Judea and was a prominent town through the 5th century. Theophilus was part of the court's examination of St. Dorothy who was persecuted for not worshiping the Roman gods. While being examined, St. Dorothy told the court upon hearing her sentence was to be execution, "I thank thee, for this day shall I be with my spouse in paradise." Ridiculing the young woman Theophilus said to her, "Going to paradise, Dorothy? Well, send me some of its fruits and flowers; good bye!" Dorothy replied, "Gladly, Theophilus, will I do what you request." 3 St. Dorothy was lead out of the court to her execution - beheading by sword. Upon reaching the landing where she was to be executed, St. Dorothy knelt in prayer whereupon a child appeared, maybe four years in age. The child had a cloth in his hand with three different fruits and three magnificent roses. St. Dorothy instructed the child to take these fruits and roses to Theophilus and say to him "Here are the fruits and flowers from paradise which you asked for." St. Dorothy then laid her head down, and was martyred. Meanwhile Theophilus was joking with his colleagues and telling them of this woman Dorothy; his story was met with hearty laughter and applause for his cutting wit. During the commotion of the laughter a child walked among them and approached Theophilus. Opening up his cloth the child said, "These are the fruits and flowers you asked the holy Dorothy to send you. I have brought them at her request from the garden of her divine spouse." At once the child vanished. Stunned, and utterly shocked by the child's appearance and the gifts, Theophilus experienced a sudden conversion. His colleagues jested with him and tried to laugh him to his senses, but he could not shake off what had just happened. Attempting to reason with his companions Theophilus said "It is midwinter, there are no fruits or flowers like these in February. Our gardens are bare and our fruit trees leafless." Nothing his friends could say or do would shake Theophilus's new found faith, even though believing in such a faith had just led St. Dorothy to her death; a death Theophilus himself mocked. Theophilus himself was brought before the same court, but this time not as a lawyer, but as the accused. He stood before the judge charged with being a convert to the new religion Christianity - Theophilus gave witness to the court, whereupon he was summarily condemned to death - the death of a martyr. Burne-Jones, who received the princely sum of £12 for designing this window, gave Theophilus a rather androgynous face. He carries a large book of the law while looking somewhat out of sorts by his confrontation with the angel. The also androgynous angel bears a flame for the Holy Spirit on his head, and carries three apples – the fruits from the gardens of paradise. Dorothea (next page) holds a branch of an apple tree. 4 Maria Zambaco, a sketch for The Beguiling of Merlin by Burne-Jones The window portraying Dorothea is perhaps the most intriguing of the three inasmuch until recently we believed the model for Dorothea was Jane Morris, However, in a recent talk in the church given by Suzanne Fagence Cooper, the non-fiction writer who has written extensively on the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian women, the speaker believed the model to be Maria Zambaco, 1843 – 1914. The window was installed in 1873, soon after Burne-Jones and Maria Zambaco finished a rather public and torrid affair. Despite this Burne-Jones continued to use her as a model for many of his later works. The following short biography of Zambaco helps fill in some of the background to this fascinating figure, and the article following this one “Burne-Jones’ Pursuit of Love by Fiona MacCarthy gives a more in-depth account of her affair with Burne-Jones. Maria Zambaco (born in London April 29th 1843, family name Cassavetti) was a first cousin of Constantine Ionides. She was a sculptor, but is better known as a model for other artists. Her features also appear repeatedly in the paintings of Rossetti's friend Edward Burne-Jones, whose affair with the tempestuous Zambaco in the late 1860s came close to wrecking his domestic and artistic existence. A painter and sculptor in her own right, she is more remembered for the numerous images created by Pre-Raphaelite painters. Born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti to Greek nobility, wealth, and high position she was a noted beauty, known along with her cousins Aglaia Coronio and Marie Spartali as one of the "Three Graces", but was also apparently a rather rude and unpleasant girl who tended to scare away young men initially attracted by her looks. She was only 16 when Maria married a Dr. Zambaco and moved to Paris, but when the marriage flopped she returned home, dumped her two children onto her mother, and began to study painting. 5 She posed for such noted painters as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James A. McNeill Whistler and in 1866 launched a turbulent personal and professional relationship with Edward Burne-Jones who rendered her image numerous times. Things came to a head in 1869 with Burne-Jones making a show of leaving his wife and Maria putting on a public suicide gesture via laudanum once she realized the leaving was only a show. In later years she studied painting at the Slade School and maintained a studio next to that of Burne- Jones who reportedly never spoke to her though he frequently used her as a seductress in his paintings. Trained by Rodin, Maria became a sculptor in Paris and at her death (14th June 1914) was buried in her family's plot under her maiden name. Others have likened Maria Zambaco’s face to stained glass designed by Burne-Jones. P. Neil Ralley, writing in April 7, 2002 on http://www.stainedglassphotography.com states that the similarities between the face and hands of Maria as portrayed in the Burne-Jones’ 1870 painting of her and the figure of St. Luke in Lanercost Priory (1877) (left) are enough to consider Maria as the source for Burne- Jones design. And then when you compare the three faces in the window at St. Martin’s … well, what do you think? 6 Maria Zambaco Jayne Morris What do you think? Email your opinion to [email protected]. If you are prepared to have your opinion published in the next newsletter, please indicate. Otherwise you vote will be published as part of the overall statistics.