Footnotes

Provenance
The artist, from whom purchased by Frederick Adolphus Konig (1867-1940), Tyringham, Buckinghamshire, by 3 August 1927, when extended, modified and retitled In Quest of Truth.
Thence by descent.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 June 1984, lot 112.
With Mark Gregson Fine Art, New York.
Property of a gentleman.

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1905, no. 15, as The Ideal.
London, Franco-British Exhibition, 1908, no. 367, as The Ideal.
Rome, International Fine Arts Exhibition Rome, 1911, no. 158, as The Ideal.
Tyringham, The Temple of Music, on long-term loan.

Literature
Engraved by Andrè & Sleigh, Ltd., 1905.
Royal Academy Pictures 1905, London, 1905, p. 129, as The Ideal.
'The Pictures of 1905,' Pall Mall Magazine Extra, London, May 1905, p. 38, illustrated, as The Ideal.
'Annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy,' New York Herald, Paris, 30 April 1905, p. 2, as The Ideal.
'Art Notes: The Royal Academy,' Truth, vol. LVII, London, 4 May 1905, p. 1145, as The Ideal.
'The Royal Academy Pictures, 1905: Part II', The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, London, 13 May 1905, p. 388, as The Ideal.
E.R. Dibdin, 'Frank Dicksee (Royal Academician): His Life and Work,' The Christmas Art Annual, London, 1905, pp. 20, 22, 25, 32, illustrated, p. 30, as The Ideal.
F.G. Dumas, ed., The Franco-British Exhibition Illustrated Review, London, 1908, pp. 65, 304, illustrated, as The Ideal.
F.A. Konig, personal diary (unpublished), 3rd August 1927.
C. Hussey, 'Modern Garden Architecture at Tyringham, Buckinghamshire', Country Life, Bath, 1 June 1929, p. 784, fig. 9.
C. Hussey, 'Tyringham, Buckinghamshire and its Garden Pavilions,' Country Life, Bath, 1929, n.p., fig. 9.
E.L. Luytens, The Temple of Music, Tyringham, Newport Pagnell, 1934, n.p., illustrated opposite the title page and three times within the text.
Simon Toll, Frank Dicksee 1853-1928: His Art and Life, Woodbridge, 2016, passim, no. FD.1905.2, illustrated p. 208.


Originating from a sketch composed at the Langham Sketching Club in 1904, the present lot was first presented as a 90 x 58 inch rectangular canvas entitled The Ideal, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1905, with a subtitle from Robert Browning's poem Abt Volger, 'The passion the left the ground to lose itself in the sky' (see illustration). One critic saw the work as 'a painted parable of [the artist's] own life – the pursuit of ideal beauty [which] is ever elusive and disappointing'¹.

The work failed to find a buyer at the exhibition, and was returned to Dicksee's studio, where it remained until spotted by Frederick Adolphus Konig, a New York banker who had purchased the Tyringham estate in Buckinghamshire in 1907. Konig wanted to create a 'Temple of Music', an architectural fantasy in the grounds of the estate, and commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to work on the project. Visiting Dicksee's studio, Konig requested that the artist make amendments to the painting, enlarging the dimensions and adding an arched top. As Simon Toll notes, the artist '[removed] the drapery concealing the male figure's nudity ... He also added the arc of a rainbow and altered the shape of the rock so that the apparition is beyond grasp.' The reworking was undertaken by Dicksee in his studio in the summer of 1927, Konig noting in his diary that he was 'much struck with the alterations to his picture'².

Now retitled In Quest of Truth with the bi-line 'Seek Truth, but remember that behind all the new knowledge, the fundamental issues of life will remain veiled', the work was installed to fit into a space above the high altar in the Luytens conceived temple.

¹ Edward Rimbault Dibdin, Art Annual, 1905.
² Simon Toll, Frank Dicksee 1853-1928: His Art and Life, Woodbridge, 2016, p. 209