John Anster Fitzgerald

British, 1823 - 1906

The Fairy's Barque

Date: 1860

The Fairy's barque is a waterlily leaf, probably inspired by the publicity surrounding the successful cultivation of the giant waterlily 'Victoria Regia' at Kew Gardens. This was one of the rare fairy paintings that Fitzgerald exhibited, showing it at the British Institution in 1860, when it was priced at £35. The Art Journal described it in flowery terms: 'The barque is a water lily on which sits enthroned with a whole 'via lactea' of stars, some fairy potentate, whose attendants clad in the fragrance of summer row their queen with bulrushes for oars.'

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