Inscription surrounded by floral border: Snowdrop: PD.8-1980.f.63

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: 123
• Location: Recto, upper right
• Method of creation: Watercolour

• Text: Thou should 'st have noble destiny, who, like / A Prophet, art shut out from kind and kin: / Who on the winter silence comest in / A still small voice. Pale Hermit of the Year, / Flower of the Wilderness! oh, not for thee / The jocund playmates of the maiden spring. / For when she danceth forth with cymballed feet, / Waking a-sudden with great welcoming, / Each calling each, they burst from hill to dell / In answering music. But thou art a bell, / A passing bell, snow-muffled, dim and sweet. / As is the Poet to his fellow-men, / So mid thy drifting snows, O snowdrop, Thou, / Gifted, in sooth, beyond them, but no less / A snowdrop. / And thou shalt complete his lot, / And bloom as fair as now when they are not. / Thou art the wonder of the seasons, O / First-born of Beauty. As the Angel near / Gazed on that first of living things which, when / The blast that ruled since Chaos o'er the sere / Leaves of primeval Palms did sweep the plain, / Clung to the new-made sod and would not drive, / So gaze I upon thee amid the reign / Of Winter. And because thou livest, I live... / ....... / S. Dobell.
• Location: Recto
• Method of creation: Watercolour

• Text: Late comers! Ye, when autumn's wealth is pest; / When pale October strips the yellowing leaves; / When on our garden lawns and dripping eaves / The rain-soaked foliage of the elm is east; / When 'neath grey skies the wild Atlantic blast Searches the flower-bed for each bloom that cleaves / To blackening tendrils; when November weaves / Fret-work of frost, and winter frowns at last; / Ye in the year's decay and death of hope / Dawn with your hues auroral, hues of rose, / Saffron and ivory, amber, amethyst; / More delicate, more dear, more true than those / Gay blossoms which the July sunbeams kissed, / Purer of scent than honeyed heliotrope. / J.A. Symonds. / To Chrysanthemums.
• Location: Verso
• Method of creation: Watercolour

Identification numbers

Accession number: PD.8-1980.f.63
Primary reference Number: 44305
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