Sir William Russell Flint 1880-1969. Sir Lancelot And The Young Squire. Framed.

Sir William Russell Flint. 
Scottish ( b.1880 - d.1969 ).
Sir Lancelot and the Young Squire, 1911. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur. 
Watercolour. Signed & Dated.
Image size 10.6 inches x 8.3 inches ( 27cm x 21cm ).
Frame size 17.9 inches x 15.4 inches ( 45.5cm x 39cm ).

Available for sale from Big Sky Fine Art in the English county of Dorset, this original painting is by the prestigious Scottish artist Sir William Russell Flint and is dated 1911.
The watercolour is presented and supplied in a sympathetic and contrasting contemporary frame to suit the subject colouration (which is shown in these photographs) and behind non-reflective Tru Vue UltraVue® UV70 glass.
This antique piece is in very good condition. It wants for nothing and is supplied ready to hang and display.
The watercolour is signed and dated lower right.

Sir William Russell Flint is acknowledged to be one of the finest watercolour artists of the twentieth century. He enjoyed unprecedented success in a variety of media, although is best remembered for his landscapes, historical subjects and semi-nudes in Spanish settings. He began his artistic career an illustrator for the Illustrated London News, gaining world-wide recognition, and also produced illustrations for some great classical literary editions.

After distinguished service in the Royal Navy Air Service and the RAF during the Great War Flint became a professional painter and developed the hallmark style which has become legendary. Flint was elected President of what is now the Royal Watercolour Society and exhibited in all the leading galleries, including the Royal Academy, where he was elected a full member in 1933. He was later given the ultimate accolade by his peers of a one-man exhibition at the Royal Academy during his lifetime. In 1947 he was knighted by King George VI for his services to art. Today his work can be found in most major public galleries and his limited-edition prints are well known. His original works are some of the finest and most sought after in the world. 

© Big Sky Fine Art

This original watercolour painting by Sir William Russell Flint was produced by him specifically for the 1910-1911 book of King Arthur and his Noble Knights of the Round Table “Le Morte Darthur” (as it was originally and ungrammatically spelt in Middle French, before becoming known as Le Morte d’Arthur). Flint produced all the illustrations of the book. A hardback copy of the second volume of the 1920 edition by the publisher Philip Lee Warner for the Medici Society Ltd, (which is complete but with the spine cover unattached) is held by Big Sky Fine Art and will be provided to the purchaser of this painting. This volume contains colour images of 18 illustrations produced by Flint, with the painting offered here reproduced as the frontispiece. The quote underneath this image in the book is “Sir Lancelot beheld the young squire and saw him seemly and demure with all manner of good features, that he weened of his age never to have seen so fair a man of form”.

The painting depicts a blond-haired young squire wearing a gold shirt with white tunic over and golden coloured belt. He is kneeling with his head lowered in reverence with his hands clasped together in front on him. He is praying or earnestly addressing those assembled. To his left is seated an older man, Sir Lancelot, wearing a black tunic over a blue shirt. He has dark cropped hair and appears to be observing the young squire intently. He is seated in a substantial wooden chair which is carved with decorations. On the wall behind is a decorative cloth, perhaps a tapestry, with a repeat pattern of kneeling angels holding a crucifix. There is also a tall stone doorway or archway, intricately carved and leading to another area. This is obviously a religious building of some prominence, perhaps an abbey. To the squire’s right there are four nuns, each dressed in traditional black habit with white wimple and black veils. All their attention is on the young squire, who appears to be making a good impression, for the expression on the faces of the nuns is solemn, yet not displeased.  

This scene is a very elegant one; the colours are rich, and the lines are fluid. There is a real sense of history about this – and indeed the work itself, now over a hundred years old, is a valuable piece of cultural history. This is a serious piece of art from an absolute master artist.

Le Morte d’Arthur (“the death of Arthur”) is a fifteenth-century Middle English prose reworking by Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a “complete” story of Arthur from birth to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Since the nineteenth century revival of the legend many other authors have used Malory as their principal source.

For a full biography of this artist please see his listing on www.bigskyfineart.com .

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