Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival Receiving the Sanc Grael

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1857

Bibliography

◦ Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 53 (no. 94).

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This design for one of the bays in the Oxford Union was not carried out by DGR. “The incident is that of the attainment of the Holy Grail by Sir Galahad who reverently receives it, while leading forward Sir Percival, whose sister lies dead on the ground beside him” ( Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné I. 53 ). In 1864 DGR returned to the subject to execute the arresting watercolour commissioned by Ellen Heaton and now in the Tate (see DGR's letters to Heaton of June, July, and October 1864, Fredeman, Correspondence 64. 86; 64. 94; 64. 138 ).

Production History

The finished design for the mural is in the British Museum, along with an unfinished study.

Pictorial

See also the commentary for the mural that DGR did execute for the Oxford Debating Union, Sir Launcelot's Vision of the Sanc Grael.

Literary

While he was involved with these pictorial commissions, DGR began to work at his unfinished poem “God's Graal”, of which various drafts and notes survive in pages from DGR's notebooks. He worked from various Arthurian sources, not just Malory.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: s94.raw.xml