Live Auction 7591British Art on Paper
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)
Lot 45

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)

Study for Antigone

Closed4 June 2008

Price Realised

GBP 6,875

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Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)
Study for Antigone
signed and inscribed 'Study for/Antigone/F. Sandys.' (centre left)
pencil, black, red and white chalk
19¾ x 15 3/8 in. (50.2 x 39.1 cm.)

Theodore Rossi, 1883.
Lt. Col. Edward S. Trafford, Wroxham Hall, 1905.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 13 December 2005, lot 16.

Specialist note

In a letter dated 10 July 1880 Sandys wrote to his agent Charles Augustus Howell about two unfinished drawings that he was working on of Faustine and Antigone saying that 'they are the two best drawings I have ever done...' (MS letter, John Rylands University Library, Manchester).

Antigone was the daughter of the incestuous marriage between King Oedipus of Thebes and his mother Jocasta and was imprisoned in a tower by her uncle King Creon, but liberated by her cousin Haemon. Her tragic story was dramatised by the ancient dramatists Sophocles and Euripides.