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Ceri Richards(British, 1903-1971)The Rape of the Sabines 63.7 x 76.5 cm. (25 x 30 1/8 in.)
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Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland

Christopher Dawson
Head of Department

Ingram Reid
Director
Ceri Richards (British, 1903-1971)
signed and dated '48 Ceri Richards' (lower left)
oil on canvas
63.7 x 76.5 cm. (25 x 30 1/8 in.)
Footnotes
Provenance
With Redfern Gallery, London
Sale; Christie's, London, 30 May 1997, lot 8 (as Rape of the Sabines)
With Jonathan Clark & Co, circa 2000, where purchased by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Literature
Mel Gooding, Ceri Richards, Cameron & Hollis, Dumfries & Galloway, 2002, p.84 (col.ill)
According to mythology, the men of early Rome were sent out from the city by Romulus to seek women for abduction (the classical translation of the term rape) from the surrounding areas, in which the Sabine people dwelled, with the aim of swelling the city's population. The tale proved a popular subject material for Renaissance and post-Renaissance era artists, including Rubens whose painting The Rape of the Sabine Women hangs in London's National Gallery. Richards found this painting and other such examples to be a fruitful point of inspiration. In a relatively narrow window he produced hundreds of drawings, several monoprints and a handful of paintings on the theme. Mel Gooding comments that 'It is in his treatment of the Sabine theme that Richards shows himself capable of figurative description in a great variety of moods and manners, from the lyrical to the dramatic, from the harshly brutal to the tenderly poignant. (Mel Gooding, Ceri Richards, Cameron & Hollis, Dumfries & Galloway, 2002, p.83).
























