WorkThis watercolour shows a small portion of a painting that is one of a series of nine. Together they unfold the story of St Ursula. Charles Fairfax Murray copied a number of these details from original large-scale paintings by the Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio (about 1460-1526). Carpaccio produced this cycle of paintings in tempera (an oily paint), between 1490 and 1496 for the Confraternity of St Ursula in Venice. Today these paintings are still in Venice, and are displayed in the Accademia Gallery.
This detail is from the sixth painting in the series. In the sixth painting, the kneeling figure of St Ursula is at the centre, next to her fiancé, an English prince. A long procession of women is to her left and a procession of bishops to the centre and right. A large castle is in the background. The work describes a scene in Rome where Ursula meets the Pope.
St UrsulaThere are several versions of St Ursula's life-story. Carpaccio used the Legenda Aurea or
Lives of the Saints, published in Venice in 1475 as inspiration for his paintings.
St Ursula was a Christian princess, who lived in the third or fourth century AD. She agreed to marry a pagan prince on the condition that he first accompanied her and 11,000 virgins on a pilgrimage across Europe to Rome. At Rome, Pope Cyriacus joined Ursula's pilgrimage. On her return home, she had a vision of an angel who foretold her martyrdom. The prophecy was realised when Ursula and her attendants reached Cologne. Here the Huns, who had invaded from Asia and eastern Europe, attacked and murdered Ursula and all her attendants.
ArtistCharles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919) made almost 40 copies of Italian masterpieces for the Guild of St George. He was a well-known figure in the late Victorian art world.
He began his artistic career by drawing diagrams in a railway engineer's office. In 1866 he became an assistant to Edward Burne-Jones before becoming a designer and painter for the William Morris firm.