Terms and conditions of use
Memories of the first Palm Sunday
1871
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
84.0 × 160.5 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1872
Gallery location
19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Both art and religion were equal passions in Edith Courtauld’s life. Raised a Protestant, she converted to Roman Catholicism following the death if her brother in 1870, and in later life she entered a Catholic religious order. Grief over her brother’s passing would have been on Courtauld’s mind when painting Memories of the First Palm Sunday, which she exhibited at London’s Royal Academy in 1871. In this brooding, melancholy work, a Christian pilgrim pauses while gathering palm branches on the way to Jerusalem, overcome with grief. Her recollection is of Christ’s joyous entry into Jerusalem on a path strewn with palms, just days before his betrayal, arrest and execution in c. 30/33 CE. Reviewing this work in 1871, the London Times critic noted how: ‘the execution is as careful and complete as the conception is gravely pathetic. When we remember the many sensational pictures of similar subjects by men, we feel that hearty recognition is due to the earnest and sympathetic spirit with which Miss Courtauld has conceived and treated her subject’.
Artwork Details
Inscription
inscribed (diagonally) in red paint l.r.: Edith Courtauld. / 1871.
Accession Number
p.303.4-1
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Human Figures Religion and Mythology
Subjects (specific)
deserts Holy Week palm leaf (material) Palm Sunday processions women (female humans)
Provenance
Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1871, no. 574; purchased from the artist, on the advice of James R. Herbert, 1872.
Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1871, no. 574.