PAINTINGS

Victor DELACROIX

Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour Surprised by the Rising Tide, 1832

Oil on canvas

92 x 66 cm
118 x 84 x 8 cm (framed)

Literature

Ghent Salon. Notice des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure, dessin, etc. d'artistes vivans, exhibition at Palais de l'Université, 6 August 1832, p. 33, no. 234.

The painting being presented here refers to Walter Scott’s literary work The Antiquary (1816), the third and last novel in the so-called “Scottish Trilogy”, which includes Waverley (1814) and Guy Mannering (1815). Set in Scotland at the end of the 18^th century, it follows the story of Lovel, a mysterious young man who has arrived in the coastal town of Fairport. Here he meets the eccentric antiquarian Jonathan Oldbuck, passionate about history and relics of the past. Lovel falls in love with Isabella Wardour, the daughter of a struggling nobleman, but their love is hampered by circumstances and intrigues surrounding Lovel’s true identity.

This painting was inspired in particular by an episode in which Sir Arthur Wardour and his daughter find themselves in grave danger at the seaside when they are surprised by high tide on a rocky beach. With them is Edie Ochiltrie, an old itinerant beggar, while young Lovel joins them in a desperate search for a safe haven. As the waves crash more and more menacingly against the cliff and the escape route along the beach is swallowed up by the water, the group attempts to scale the rocks. Lovell proves to be a true hero; it is he who manages to identify a potential escape route along the cliff face. Oldbuck, the old antiques dealer, arrives at the top of the cliff with servants and ropes. With great effort and skilfulness, they manage to lower the ropes and pull everyone to safety, one by one, rescuing them from the wrath of the sea, now a raging storm.

This episode, in addition to being one of the tensest scenes in the novel, strengthens the bond between Lovell and Isabella, hinting at a nascent feeling between the two, while the rescue highlights the generous and resolute character of Oldbuck whose erudition and gruff spirit hide a loyal and selfless heart.

The work is to be attributed to the artist Victor Delacroix, born in Paris in 1802,[1] but a naturalized Belgian, who died in Roubaix in 1868.

Living in Brussels in the 1830s, Victor Delacroix exhibited genre and historical genre subjects at the Belgian salons. Many of these works were based on British literature, in particular by Walter Scott (Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour Surprised by the Rising Tide, from The Antiquary, Ghent Salon, 1832) and Byron (Gulnare, Brussels Salon, 1836). Others are marked by a taste for the fantastic (Beelzebub’s Agent, Brussels Salon, 1833).

234.

Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour were caught on the rocks

by the rising tide. The beggar Ochiltrie and Lovel willingly exposed themselves to the same danger to help them save themselves. Oldbuck and some fishermen attempted to rescue them from the top of the rock, using a chair suspended from a rope.

(From The Antiquary, by Walter Scott)

[1] The Benezit Dictionary of Artists mentions only one Victor Delacroix, born in Brussels in 1842. This is indeed the same artist, but his date of birth is incorrect. As is the date of his death, since he was still active in 1848, when he presented the work A Communist Family at the Brussels Exposition, which the Revue de Belgique described as a “compassionate gaze”.

The Ghent City Memorial from 1902 provides correct information about him: a painter of French origin, born in Paris in 1802, he settled in Belgium (then the Kingdom of the Netherlands) where he obtained naturalization in 1821. He died in Roubaix in 1868.

(Gilles Soubigou, La Littérature britannique et les milieux artistiques français 1789-1830. Réception, traduction, création: l’invention d’un imaginaire romantique. PhD thesis, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2016)

of 49