THE MADONNA OF 'THE MIRACLE' WITH SELF-PORTRAIT
oil on canvas
55 x 43cm; 21 3/4 x 17in
74 X 61cm; 29 x 24in (framed)

Property from a Deceased Estate

Provenance:
Mr & Mrs Thomas Leman Hare (commissioned from the artist. Thomas Leman Hare was a publisher and collector and in the 1920s became editor of Apollo magazine)
Mrs Genevieve Shillingford (god-daughter of Mrs Leman Hare)
Miss Joia Shillingford (daughter of the above)
Sale, Sotheby's London, 11th November 1981, lot 242 (sold by the above)
A. Leslie (probably purchased at the above sale)
Alton Gallery, Barnes
Purchased by the late owner from the above prior to 1990

Painted in 1912, this is a unique example in Gaudier-Brzeska’s oeuvre both in being painted on canvas rather than paper, and in the silhouette self-portrait holding a brush. The statuette in the foreground of the composition is a plaster Gaudier had recently completed of Madame Carmi in the leading role of the Madonna in The Miracle performed at the London Olympia. The plaster is now in the collection of Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (fig. 1).

The present painting was almost certainly executed in the Thameside home of his patrons, Mr and Mrs Leman Hare, on Chiswick Mall. Thomas Leman Hare (1872-1935) was a painter, collector and writer on art, who subsequently became editor of Apollo magazine. Friends of the Leman Hares included fellow art writer Haldane Macfall, painter and illustrator Claud Lovat Fraser and the aspiring young writer Enid Bagnold, who later achieved fame as the author of National Velvet.

Gaudier-Brzeska had arrived from his native France with his companion Sophie Brzeska early in 1911 and had entered the orbit of this group in January 1912 after writing to Haldane Macfall in response to an article he had published in the English Review. Gaudier modelled portraits of several of them and contacts with more advanced artists and writers followed notably with the sculptor Jacob Epstein, some of the Camden Town painters and with Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop. In 1914 he was elected to the London Group and emerged as one of the leaders of the short-lived, radical Vorticist Group before his tragically premature death in France aged only 23.

Performed from 21 December 1911 to 10 February 1912, The Miracle, produced by the German impressario Max Reinhardt was an extravaganza - part medieval miracle play, part wordless musical pageant involving around 1,700 performers including orchestra and chorus, horses, actors and a set evoking the interior of a medieval church which is probably that sketched on the verso of Gaudier’s canvas (fig. 2). It was a hit which subsequently toured in Europe and the US, was revived in the 1920s and filmed in three versions. It also launched the career of Maria Carmi who incarnated the central figure, a sculpture of the Madonna and the redemptive figure of the nun at the core of the plot.

The statuette of Maria Carmi (1880-1957) was one of Gaudier’s earliest commissions. He was paid £5. The commission and the process of its making were described both by Sophie Brzeska in the ‘Journal’ of her life with Gaudier (Cambridge University Library) and by Gaudier himself in a letter, dated 12 February 1912, to Haldane Macfall (National Art Library).

In Sophie Brzeska’s account Mrs Leman Hare arrived at their Chelsea lodgings, just as they were packing up to move, to offer Gaudier the commission and to insist that he and Sophie Brzeska accompany the Hares to the final performance who had already seen it eight times; ‘There is a large number of people who admire Maria Carmi as much as we do. So my husband had the idea to ask Lord Northcliffe and a few other gentlemen whether they might not like to contribute to having a bust made of this divine Madonna. Lord Northcliffe was enchanted by the idea. . . We are going to have a copy cast in bronze to offer to Madame Carmi and then fifty or so in plaster which will sell easily.’

Two days later Gaudier gave a down-to-earth account in a letter to Macfall, describing the sculpture as a statuette rather than a bust. ‘Off we went as tired as could be, made about sixty sketches of the subject, came back home…at 1 o’clock yesterday, and spent the whole morning putting up the clay for the thing.’ He added ‘Mr Hare gave me a very good idea. He suggested that I should indicate on the plaster cast the different colours gold, red and blue and this I will do.’

On 26 February Gaudier was able to report to Macfall that the mould was finished and he expected to be able to cast the piece that evening. A second plain white cast was made, later probably destroyed, but the projected edition never came to fruition.

The archive image of the statuette (fig. 1) shows short brush strokes of colour applied in an Impressionist technique although all the colour has now deteriorated to dark brown in this sculpture (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge). A pastel of The Madonna alone (Private Collection) is more densely pigmented in red, blue, green and ochre (H Brodzky, Gaudier-Brzeska Drawings, 1946, colour frontispiece). One may surmise that Gaudier included the mirrored image of himself as a painter rather than sculptor in his canvas in acknowledgement of Leman Hare’s colour suggestion.

We are grateful to Dr Evelyn Silber for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

fig. 1, Archival photograph of Gaudier-Brzeska, Mme Carmi as the Madonna in 'The Miracle', plaster, 1912 (courtesy of Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge)

fig. 2, The reverse of the present lot, almost certainly showing the stage set of The Miracle performed at Olympia Exhibition Halls 1911-12