Frank Cadogan Cowper, R.A. (1877-1958)

This fine example of Cadogan Cowper's work, exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society in 1908, illustrates the eponymous heroine from the well-known fairytale Rapunzel, by the brothers Grimm. Cowper was one of the most interesting of the artists who turned their backs on modernism and attempted to maintain the Pre-Raphaelite tradition far into the 20th century, still exhibiting pictures of this kind as late as the 1950s. Here, Cowper is deeply indebted to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s legacy. This can be evinced through the half-length depiction of a beautiful woman, leaning on a parapet, clad in sumptuous robes and combing her luxuriant tresses - all features integral to the Venetian or Aesthetic style Rossetti evolved in the 1860s. In Rapunzel, the picture is dominated by the exotic, boldly patterned fabric of her opulent sleeve of cream and crimson damask.
Cowper also demonstrates his Pre-Raphaelite leanings through his source material. William Morris’s version of the fairytale was published in his first volume of poetry, The Defence of Guenevere, in 1858, and Cowper quoted from the poem in the R.W.S. catalogue. There are details in Morris's account, for example the description of the heroine 'bearing within her arms waves of her yellow hair', which Cowper seems to consciously echo. The quote he used comes from a passage in which Rapunzel plaintively describes a vision of the knight who may one day come to her rescue.