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Paris as Proving Ground: Part II |
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John White Alexander (1856–1915)
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1897
Oil on canvas; 75 5/8 x 36 1/8 in. (192.1 x 91.8 cm)
Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 1897
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow
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Taking his subject from an 1820 poem by John Keats (inspired by Boccaccio's 14th-century Decameron), Alexander painted an image at once macabre and beautiful, like those favored by the French Symbolists. The heroine embraces a vase of sweet basil that also contains the head of her murdered lover. With its decadent subject and sinuous curves, the painting reflects the fashionable Art Nouveau style. Curator Léonce Bénédite tried to acquire Isabella for the Musée du Luxembourg from the 1897 "new" Salon, but American painter Ernest Longfellow had already purchased it as a gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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