TitleRoses
Artist
Henry Siddons Mowbray
(1858 - 1928)
Daten.d.
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 12 1/8 × 16 1/4 in.
Framed: 24 1/4 × 28 5/16 × 3 1/16 in.
SignedSigned lower left: "HS" [monogram]
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number901-P
Label TextIn the 1880s, Mowbray painted orientalist fantasies centering on the intoxicating fragrance of roses. He drew his inspiration from Thomas Moore's long narrative poem Lalla Rookh, originally published in 1817. The poem chronicles the story of the Hindostani emperor Aurengzebe's youngest daughter Lalla Rookh and her journey from Delhi to Cashmere for her arranged marriage to the son of Abdalla, King of the Lesser Bucharia. Mowbray’s romantic and sumptuously colored works are drawn more from his imagination than from explicit scenes that occur in Moore's poem. They center on beautiful young women and men who appear in a state of intoxication after stomping and sorting through vast heaps of plucked pink roses in order to prepare for the making of the famous attar of roses, which was used in Persia as a perfume and love potion.
