RUPERT BUNNY

Lance Crawford, Melbourne
The estate of a private collector, Melbourne; purchased from the above circa 1985

Salon d'Automne, Paris, 15 November 1919, cat. 274, as 'La Toison d'Or'
Exhibition of Paintings by Rupert C. W. Bunny, Hogan's Art Gallery, Melbourne, 23 September-10 October 1936, cat. 32, as 'The Golden Fleece'

David Thomas, Rupert Bunny, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1970, cat. 0191

Good condition. UV inspection reveals no areas of retouching.
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Rupert Bunny's La toison d'or (The Golden Fleece) belongs to that colourful and brilliant group of paintings, from the latter part of his career, which he called 'mythological decorations.' They are his most original contributions to art.

Bunny had a lifelong interest in the ancients; his 19th-century subject compositions of merfolk, Arcadian moments, and tales from the Bible were in the best tradition of history painting, of ennobling moments and absorbing narrative. Jason and the Argonauts capturing the Golden Fleece is a well-known tale in classical mythology. It tells of Jason and his band of Greek heroes, the 'Argonauts', sailing in their ship the Argo to adventures bold and their recovery of the Fleece. Jason recaptured the fleece with the assistance of the magical sounds of Orpheus and the magical powers of the bewitching Medea. In La toison D'Or, Medea is to the left, exotic and sexually provocative. Jason advances, sword drawn, towards the monstrous dragon, guardian of the Fleece, which hangs from the tree - as in the ancient tale. The Argo is seen in the middle, distant background.

La toison d'or was exhibited in the Paris Salon d'Automne of 1919 together with the related works, Salomé and Circé, the presence of Medea in our work lining up an unrivalled triumvirate of powerful women, the femmes fatales of the ancient world.  Based on the Greek myths and tales of their great heroes, its pendent is Circe and Ulysses in the collection of the Geelong Art Gallery.

Earlier in his career, mythological paintings played an important role in Bunny's advancement. In 1890, The tritons (Art Gallery of New South Wales) was the first work by an Australian artist to be awarded a mention honorable at a Paris Salon. Another mythological work, Sea idyll circa 1890, was Alfred Felton's first gift to the National Gallery of Victoria, the gallery he was to endow so well years later through his magnificent bequest.  And Pastoral (circa 1893, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), had been bought by Baronne de Banffy, wife of the prime minister of Hungary. During the first decade of the new century, Bunny concentrated on paintings of great feminine charm: Endormies circa 1904 (National Gallery of Victoria) and Returning from the Garden circa 1906 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), both, like most of his paintings of this time, featuring his beautiful wife Jeanne Heloise.

In 1909, Diaghilev's sensational Ballets Russes, with its wildly exotic dancing and music, richly colourful costumes and sets to match, took Paris by storm. Bunny was enthralled, the effect on his art being found in the colourful and compositionally inventive mythological decorations that flowed from his brush. There was The rape of Persephone (circa 1913, National Gallery of Australia), The harem (circa 1913, Toowoomba Art Gallery), and Salomé circa 1919, (Art Gallery of New South Wales). Bunny sought to match the dancing of Nijinsky and Pavlova, the designs of Bakst, Braque and Picasso, and the music of Debussy and Prokofiev with the pulse of movement and pure colour of his own paintings. The profiling of the figures of Medea and Jason in the present painting, as in most others, was influenced by Ninjinsky's dancing in L'après-midi d'un faune, based on how figures would appear on an ancient Greek vase. Bunny matched this through the flattening of his figures as they move across the painted surface, the emphasis being on the picture plane rather than creating an illusion of depth. This he combined with other contemporary influences - an interest in Islamic art, Matisse's odalisques, and the bold colour of the Fauves. In La toison d'or, the rhythmic repetition of colours and forms, with sympathetic interplay of design, combines action with narrative. When exhibited in Melbourne in 1936, George Bell would not single out any one painting for special comment, regarding all of equal merit. He described the exhibition as 'a glorious riot of colour...' and hailed Bunny as 'the finest imaginative artist Australia has produced... .' ¹

We are grateful to David Thomas for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

1. George Bell, 'Jewel-like art of Rupert Bunny', The Sun News-Pictorial, Melbourne, 23 September 1936, p. 33