An Inventory of His Art Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Harrison, Thomas Erat,
1853-1917
Title:
Thomas Erat Harrison Art
Collection
Dates:
1880
Extent:
15 items (1 oversize box)
Abstract:
Thecollection consists of cartoonsfor
a set of twelve realized stained glass windows at Betteshanger House, Kent, United
Kingdom. The drawings are based on verse from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and depict the twelve months of the
year and associated zodiac symbols and iconography.
Call Number:
Art Collection AR-00351
Language:
English
Access:
Open for research. Please note that a minimum of 24 hours notice is required to pull
art materials to the Ransom Center's Reading and Viewing Room. Some materials
may be
restricted from viewing. To make an appointment or to reserve art materials, please
contact the Center's staff at art@hrc.utexas.edu.
Thomas Erat Harrison, born, 1853, was a British sculptor, painter, and engraver. He
exhibited in London from 1875, mainly at the Royal Academy. Harrison died in
1917.
Sources:
"Harrison, Thomas Erat (British sculptor, painter, and engraver,
1853-1917)." Union List of Artist Names
Online. The J. Paul Getty Trust, accessed February 2, 2017,
http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=harrison%2C+thomas+erat&role=&nation=&page=1&subjectid=500015263.
"HARRISON, Thomas Erat." Benezit Dictionary
of Artists. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March
8, 2017, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00084085.
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of twelve cartoons, designed and illustrated by Thomas Erat
Harrison, for a set of realized stained glass windows. The windows were commissioned
by Walter Henry James (1846-1923), second Baron of Northbourne, for his estate,
Betteshanger House, in Kent, England. The set, which depicts each month of the
year
and associated zodiac iconography, is accompanied by glassine sheets of verse,
excerpted from Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene
(1590-1596), written inside a scroll-like cartouche in black ink. There is no
accompanying sheet of verse for the month of May. Also present are studies for
two
decorative cartouches designed to frame the drawings for each month, and a single
study designed to frame the excerpted verse.
Related Material
There are two engravings created as frontispieces for The
Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Vol. I (1819) edited by John Aikin, in
the James F. Drake, Inc. Art Collection. Several editions of The Faerie Queene are present in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.
