Inscription surrounded by floral border: Rose: PD.8-1980.f.14

Materials used in production

Watercolour
Graphite

Components of the work

Support composed of paper
Leaf Height 326 mm Width 255 mm

Techniques used in production

Watercolour : Watercolour over graphite on paper

Inscription or legends present

• Text: 25
• Location: Recto, upper right
• Method of creation: Watercolour

• Text: Keep and hold in a crimson fold, / Rose! - Thy passionate sweetness: / Let the brown bee dip, and the butterfly sip, / But keep it sage from the Sun's hot lip / And dark Death's fiery fleetness. / Yet come He will and come He may. / For if we thought that no decay / Would follow Thy completeness: / Should we love Thee, Rose? - ah! who can say, / Should we love Thee, Rose, as we do today, / With Thy perishing passionate sweetness?
• Location: Recto
• Method of creation: Watercolour

• Text: My sweet sun-tinted roses, faint and fair / As morning twilight! though ye soon must fade, / Still shall ye bloom for me, I will not braid / Soft leaves and fragile blossoms in my hair, / But for a few bright hours, with loving care / I strive to paint the golden light and shade / Wherein each curling petal is arrayed, / And the translucent green your leaf-sprays wear. / So would I keep sweet hopes, that else might die, / And fragrant fancies, withering too fast, / All fresh delight in earth, and sea, and sky, / And the deep joy, so near akin to grief; / That from the slumberous garden of the past / I may not lose one sun-reflecting leaf. / C.C.W. Naden. / I saw a roes-bud ope this morn; - I swear / The blushing morning opened not more fair. / A. Cowley.
• Location: Verso
• Method of creation: Watercolour

Identification numbers

Accession number: PD.8-1980.f.14
Primary reference Number: 44000
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Monday 3 August 2020 Last processed: Tuesday 13 June 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Paintings, Drawings and Prints