Saving St Cecelia (With Your Help)

Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse - Sir Joshua Reynolds

When I was Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, I faced a recurring problem – one that Xavier Salomon has inherited: i.e. one of our biggest, and most important paintings – Reynolds’s Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse – does not have a natural hanging partner.

It is so big, it dominates the wall.

At one point she hung opposite our great Gainsborough portrait of Mrs Moody, and while the two ladies do share a rather unfortunate nose, it never looked right; Mrs S posing furiously like a Michelangelo Sybil, Mrs M strolling in the park with her children.

Mrs S’s current partner is James VI & I: two drama queens together, you may say; but he looks undeniably stunted opposite her and everything else – date, style, frame, size, colour – is wrong also.

In the late 19th century, a photograph shows that the Reynolds was hung centrally on the wall of what looks like the current Gallery 9, avoiding the whole issue of balance. But with our current hang, we can’t do that – and before the 1870 additions to the hanging space created by the removal of the almswomen from the Gallery site to their current location in the Old College, neither could previous Keepers. It must always have been a problem.

Saint Cecilia

Recently, our Chief Curator, Xavier, hung Gallery 10 with paintings in need of conservation, calling the display – ho ho – Desperately Seeking Conservation. One painting – the enormous Bolognese St Cecilia that the Friends have taken on as a fund-raising project – is particularly mind-boggling. It is currently virtually invisible under a massively-discoloured old varnish and frightening tears in its canvas.

But a small cleaning patch reveals that this St Cecilia, who currently appears to be wearing an outfit in shades of tobacco, mud and dark brown, will be revealed by cleaning to be in fact draped in gorgeous bright yellow and grass green.

Saint Cecilia detail of cleaning

But another problem is very clear, seeing her like this: the canvas has very obviously been massively increased in size from the original painting. Aha, exclaims every regular visitor to the Gallery, I know who is behind THAT.

And they are right: our excellent Founder, Sir Francis Bourgeois, a painter himself, had little hesitation in intervening in the scale and sometimes the subject matter of a painting. He did so, usually, for one of two reasons: 1) to make a painting more saleable – a tiny, early Cuyp River Scene (DPG 60 – signed) could be made much more attractive to a potential buyer if it looked more like a ‘proper’ Cuyp; so he added an enormous sky, and several lumpen cows (both of which we have now removed).

Cuyp- 'River Scene' DPG 60

Or 2) to make two unrelated paintings ‘match’ as hanging companions – as in Van Dyck’s Madonna & Child (DPG 90), to which he added a broad strip at the top. Why? Because he wanted to hang it as a pair to another Van Dyck, his Charity (DPG 81 – now recognised as a studio copy).

When Xavier hung St Cecilia’s enormous frame next to the painting in this display, he did so to demonstrate that it too needed a huge amount of work. But he also provided me with a revelation. There is only one other frame of exactly that design and size in the Gallery – yes, you guessed it. Mrs Siddons.

Saint Cecilia detail showing additions

Suddenly, all is clear: our Founders deliberately increased the size of the Bolognese painting to provide Mrs Siddons with a natural hanging partner:- the Tragic Muse hung opposite the Patron Saint of Music. Both cast their eyes to heaven; both are inspired artists; they are on the same scale; they are even both influenced by the same ultimate model – Michelangelo’s Sybils from the Sistine Chapel.

The intelligence and aptness of the comparison is typical of our brilliant founders, whom I nowadays NEVER underestimate; and the compliment to Mrs Siddons is breathtaking – but completely in character with our Founders, who were both avid theatre-goers, not to mention personal friends of Sarah Siddons’s equally famous brother John Philip Kemble.

Desperately Seeking Conservation is on over Christmas until the 3rd of January; Mrs Siddons hangs within tantalising sight of St Cecilia. Please, please support the Friends’ efforts – and then this old double act will be able to take up where they left off, over a century ago; and James VI & I can go and sulk elsewhere, somewhere where he isn’t overshadowed by his starry neighbour.

How to donate

Ian Dejardin is Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery.