Beneath Wyndham Lewis’s Praxitella

Beneath Wyndham Lewis’s Praxitella–

The Rediscovery of a lost Vorticist work by Helen Saunders

Painting Pairs Project 2020By Rebecca Chipkin and Helen Kohn

Beneath Wyndham Lewis’s Praxitella Rebecca Chipkin and Helen Kohn

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Introduction The Painting Pairs project enables postgraduate conservation students and art history students

at the Courtauld Institute of Art to conduct a technical and art historical analysis of an artwork

together. The following paper presents the research findings for the painting Praxitella, c. 1921

by Wyndham Lewis from Leeds Art Gallery. The research was undertaken by Rebecca Chipkin

and Helen Kohn from November 2019 until May 2020.

Acknowledgements First of all, we would like to thank Leeds Art Gallery for giving us the opportunity to study one

of the masterpieces of their collection. In particular, we thank Nigel Walsh. This project would

not have been possible without the help of our tutors, scholars, and friends, who gave us new

insights, helped us to ask the right questions and see things from new angles. We thank: Silvia

Amato, Pippa Balch, Dr Leon Betsworth, Prof Aviva Burnstock, Paul Edwards, Dr Pia

Gottschaller, Dr Paul O’Keeffe, Brigid Peppin, Prof David Peters Corbett, Clare Richardson,

Dr Karen Serres, and Dr Barnaby Wright.


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Table of Contents

A glance at the surface: Praxitella by Wyndham Lewis ........................................................... 3 A look beneath Praxitella: Atlantic City by Helen Saunders .................................................... 8 Painting over Atlantic City: A work by Saunders or Lewis? ................................................... 13 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 15 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 16

Appendix I: Key Stage Images ............................................................................................... 18

Appendix II: Detail Images ...................................................................................................... 22

Appendix III: Diagrams .......................................................................................................... 26

Appendix IV: Reference Images ............................................................................................. 28

Appendix V: Paint Cross-sections .......................................................................................... 37


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A glance at the surface: Praxitella by Wyndham Lewis The painting Praxitella by Wyndham Lewis was first shown at the Tyros and Portraits

exhibition at Leicester Galleries in London in April 1921. This was Wyndham Lewis’s most

important exhibition after World War I, in which he publicly presented, through his paintings,

his ideas about post-war contemporary British art.1 Lewis always wanted to innovate British

contemporary art. He had achieved recognition as one of the founding members of the Vorticist

avant-garde art movement in 1914 that aimed to express his time and generation with abstract

machine-like forms.2

Most of the forty-five artworks shown at Tyros and Portraits were works on paper. Only

seven works were oil paintings, as Lewis worked mainly on paper and not on canvas.3

Compared to the smaller works on paper Praxitella, with its large dimensions of 142.2 x 101.6

cm, stood out. But it is not only a remarkable painting because of its size. At the centre of the

painting sits a monumental machine-like figure on a large, curved, brown armchair. The figure

– a woman – looks pensively downwards. Her eyes are not fully visible, and her yellow-reddish

pupils, red lips and chin stand out in contrast with the blue metallic colour of her flesh. The

paint layer of the bright background contains small lumps that emphasise Praxitella’s

shimmering appearance. Her face is painted with distinctive lines that emphasise her forehead

and cheeks. She wears a flowing blue-green dress with three striking rust-brown, parallel bands

near the hem. The zig-zagging abstract forms of her left arm seem like an homage by Lewis to

his pre-war Vorticist phase.

Praxitella’s distinctive brown hair in a tight bun and her dress identify her as Iris Barry.4

Barry was Lewis’s lover and muse between 1918 and 1922.5 She was a young and intelligent

woman who later became one of the most prominent film critics of her time. She was also the

founder of the film library at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she curated small

1 David Peters Corbett, ed., Wyndham Lewis and the Art of Modern War (Cambridge, England ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 99.; Paul Edwards, Wyndham Lewis: Painter and Writer (New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2000), 253. 2 John Rothenstein and Wyndham Lewis, eds., Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism: A Tate Gallery Exhibition Circulated by the Arts Council (London: Tate Britain and Arts Council of Great Britain, 1956), 3. Lewis writes that he aims to find “a visual language as abstract as music”; Richard Cork, Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age: Origins and Development, vol. 1 (University of California Press, 1976), 94. 3 Paul Edwards and Richard Humphreys, Wyndham Lewis Portraits (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2008), 12. 4 Paul Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’ (Leeds, 2016), 19.; Robert Sitton, Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the Art of Film (Columbia University Press, 2014), 73. 5 Sitton, Lady in the Dark, 73 Footnote 25.


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film exhibitions.6 Like Lewis, she is described as having had a sarcastic humour and sharp

personality.7

The palette is dominated by blues, greens and purples, punctuated by areas of yellow

and red that vibrate against the darker colours (app. I, plate 1). The figure is thickly painted

with defined edges that stand out against the pale green background, which is made of a mixture

of emerald green and a high proportion of lead white. Small grainy matter, possibly sand, has

been mixed into the background paint to provide an uneven texture (app. V, fig. 1). The dark

blue dress is made of a mixture probably containing viridian or emerald green and possibly

Prussian blue that was applied in several layers to model subtle differences in hue.8 Examination

of a paint cross-section taken from Praxitella’s proper right shoulder and examined under UV

shows particles that fluoresce bright yellow, which suggests the presence of zinc white, which

was added to make Praxitella’s dress lighter (app. V, figs. 3, 4).

Praxitella’s bright red lips are painted using vermilion (presumably the modern,

synthetic version of the pigment). The chrome-based yellow paint at the border of Praxitella’s

dress, which peaks out from underneath the dark blue and which is also present in the

glimmering yellow at the hem and border of the proper left sleeve, gives Praxitella an ominous

quality. In some areas of the hem, chrome yellow was mixed with an iron oxide pigment, most

likely umber, and in others it was applied over the top of the umber (app II, fig. 1).9 In several

areas, there are at least three layers of yellow in varying shades, some of which are mixed with

vermilion and red lake pigments to produce warmer and darker tonalities. These additions result

in an orange colour. The smooth gradations that give a metal-like reflective quality to Praxitella

were achieved by applying the paint wet-in-wet. At the contour of the chest, for example, yellow

and light blue paints used for the highlight are carefully blended into the darker blue of the dress

using straight brushstrokes so the colours mix together on the surface of the painting (app. II,

fig 2).

In addition to this blending technique, Lewis achieved complex colours through the use

of transparent layers. This can be seen in the proper right cheek of Praxitella where the blue

shadow on her cheek was painted over already dry pink paint. This gives the effect of warm,

6 Jeffrey Meyers, The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis (Boston [Mass.]; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 93. 7 Meyers, 89. 8 Elements copper and arsenic were detected using XRF, which could suggest emerald green. Chromium was detected in the same area, which could suggest viridian. XRF penetrates through multiple layers, which means one or more of the elements could belong to a different layer. 9 A peak for manganese appears in XRF, together with a peak for iron this can indicate umber pigment.


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glowing skin (app. II, fig. 3) – a strange contrast to the sharp lines and metallic quality of the

rest of the figure. This same technique is used for the area of the floor where a mixture of lead

white, red lake and possibly ultramarine was used to create a light purple, which was brushed

onto a beige-grey background containing lead white, iron oxides and a small amount of chrome

yellow. This technique gives what would be an otherwise blank space a textural and lively

quality (app. II, fig 4).

Lewis also made compositional changes in the final stages of the painting process. For

example, Praxitella’s hair was originally painted after the background layers had dried (app II,

figs. 5 and 6), after which the hair was extended higher over the background (app. II, fig. 7).

The grainy matter added to the background can be seen where the hair has been extended. In

these areas, an X-radiograph taken as part of the technical analysis of this work confirms that

the sitter’s bun had in fact been changed (app I, plate 4). The armrest on the left was likewise

extended over the background (app. II, figs. 8 and 9). This change can also be seen in the IR

reflectograph (IRR; app. I, plate 2). By making these adjustments Lewis filled the composition

with the figure – expanding her presence both literally and figuratively.

Other compositional changes to certain areas of the painting that reveal Lewis’s focus

on the refinement of his ideas can be observed using infrared reflectography. A wet carbon-

based medium was used to quickly sketch out the position of Praxitella’s limbs, seen in the IR

image. The wrinkle in the fabric that can be detected on the right was painted out in the final

version of the painting. Likewise, the fold of fabric on the far right has also been simplified to

a semi-circular form (both features can be seen in app. II, fig. 10). These changes were possibly

made to give the figure a stiffer, smoother, and more planar quality.

The IR reflectograph referred to above also lets us understand that Lewis not only

sketched the contour of Praxitella in the planning stages, but also modelled the form with

passages of shadow and light. Lewis also described the form using a series of thin geometric

lines, as seen in the stacked pair of feet (app. II, fig. 12).

The IR reflectograph also shows another one of Lewis’s approaches to planning the

composition: a grid drawn in a dry medium. It is made of perpendicular and diagonal lines that

form a diamond-shaped grid (app II, fig. 13 and app. III, fig. 2). Lewis is documented to have

used a grid in several of his other large-scale portraits, also appearing in his sketches and earlier

Vorticist period works.10 For example, a grid is visible in Lewis’s Seated Figure, painted around

10 For example, Dragon in a cage, c.1914-1915 signed in 1950. Reproduced in: Walter Michel, Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings. With an Introductory Essay by Hugh Kenner. (Thames and Hudson London, 1971). Plate 29.


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1921, which appeared in the Tyros and Portraits exhibition with Praxitella (app. IV, fig. 1). In

Seated Figure, a grid is visible even in normal light. This is also the case with the portrait of

Edwin Evans, painted in 1922-23 (app. IV, fig 2). Because the latter painting is unfinished, the

planning stages are more apparent.

Grids appear in paintings by Vorticist artists like David Bomberg and William Roberts

either in planning stages or as a compositional element in the final painting. This is seen in

Bomberg’s Ju-Jitsu, 1913, where the grid cuts through the painting on diagonals making a

kaleidoscope of figures and geometric shapes (app. IV, fig 3). Many Vorticists including Lewis

had studied at the Slade, where the tradition of squaring up canvases was still taught.11 Walter

Sickert, who taught Bomberg when he was a professor at Westminster School before 1911,

squared up the majority of his works, sometimes employing the use of diagonal lines.12 Sickert

was methodical about the way in which he would execute the planning stages of his work and

he believed it to be the correct way to start a painting.13 The artists Spencer Gore and Harold

Gilman were also taught by Sickert, taking on his techniques of drawing – especially that of a

grid. Both were also known to have used a diamond-shaped grid in their works.14 Together with

Lewis they were members of the Camden Town Group that was headed by Sickert.15 Therefore,

Lewis could have been influenced by Sickert as well. Whether the grid relates to the

composition of Praxitella or another painting underneath will be discussed below.

But let us remain for a moment with Praxitella. In the Tyros and Portraits exhibition

mentioned above, Lewis exhibited not only Praxitella but also its preparatory studies. One of

these, Woman Seated in Armchair (app. IV, fig 4), depicts Iris Barry. She wears the same dress

and sits in the same chair as is visible in Praxitella. Even if the viewers could not identify her

as Iris Barry, it was clear to them that Lewis was painting her as Praxitella. He could have

simply called it Portrait of a Woman or Iris Barry, but instead he drew a connection to

Praxiteles, the ancient Greek sculptor.16 Yet, there are no similarities in Praxitella’s appearance

11 Cork, Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age, 1:76. 12 Cork, Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age, 1:65.; The authors are thankful to Paul Edwards and Prof David Peters Corbett, who both mentioned Sickert in conversations with the authors. The discussions took place at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London on the 17th of January 2020 and 12th of February 2020. 13 Alistair Smith, ‘Walter Sickert’s Drawing Practice and the Camden Town Ethos’, ed. Helen Bonett, Ysanne Holt, and Jennifer Mundy, The Camden Town Group in Context, 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/alistair-smith-walter-sickerts-drawing-practice-and-the-camden-town-ethos-r1104369. 14 Smith. 15 Smith.;Ysanne Holt, ‘The Camden Town Group: Then and Now’, in The Camden Town Group in Context (London: Tate Research Publication, 2012), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/ysanne-holt-the-camden-town-group-then-and-now-r1105679. 16 Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’, 24-25.; Edwards and Humphreys, Wyndham Lewis Portraits, 37.


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to an ancient sculpture by Praxiteles. This could be read as a critique of the classical revival,

the so-called “return to order” that was taking place in Paris then. At the same time, it might be

a visualisation of Lewis’s artistic aims. Praxitella was exhibited together with his self-portrait,

Painting of the Artist as the Painter Raphael (app. IV, fig. 5). These paintings’ titles alone point

to Lewis’s aspirations as an artist, by putting himself in line with eminent historical artists such

as Praxiteles and Raphael.17

The works in the exhibition showed modern figures that he called “Tyros”. For Lewis,

a Tyro was a prototypical figure of a post-war society. For him it was also a satirical and ironical

being whom the viewer is meant to find humorous. However, Lewis wanted the viewer’s

reaction to “[bring] to the surface all the burrowing and interior broods which the individual

may harbour”.18 A Tyro was a figure – like him – who was trying to cope with the horrors of

the past.19 At the same time this was, as the title promised, an exhibition with Tyros and

portraits. In this context, Praxitella represents both a Tyro and a portrait – of Iris Barry, a

woman of post-war society who tries to come to terms with the horrors of her past.20 Her

machine-like armour protects her, yet is also a reminder of war and the destructive power of

industrialisation.

Lewis’s satirical Tyros proved unsuccessful in shaking up British society, and he

abandoned them in the 1920s, along with painting itself shortly after the exhibition.21 When he

returned to painting in the 1930s, he mainly focused on portraits, which he had always excelled

at.22 Lewis was very critical of his own work but also recognised his talent: “In my portraits

what is lacking is numbers.”23 Therefore, Praxitella is a key work of his oeuvre that can be seen

as both the starting point for his later portraits and as a connection to his Vorticist phase – made

visible, for example, in the zig-zagging folds on the arms of Praxitella’s dress. Furthermore,

there is a hidden connection to a Vorticist composition visible only by looking closely at the

17 However, the titles can also be interpreted ironically, as Lewis was criticising the Parisian classical revival. The authors are thankful that this was pointed out by Paul Edwards in an email to them (12th of June 2020). 18 Wyndham Lewis, ‘Tyros and Portraits’ Catalogue of an Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Wyndham Lewis (London: The Leicester Galleries, 1921), 8. 19 One self-portrait shown in the exhibition is titled: Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro. (Wyndham Lewis, Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro, c.1921, oil on canvas, 73.5 x 44 cm, Ferens Art Gallery.) 20 For Iris Barry the war was a liberation, but for Wyndham Lewis it was a traumatic event. Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’, 3. The phrase Tyro was also used by Iris Barry to describe paintings by Lewis. Sitton, Lady in the Dark, 73. The authors are thankful that this was pointed out by Paul Edwards in an email to them (12th of June 2020). 21 Edwards, Wyndham Lewis, 255.; Edwards and Humphreys, Wyndham Lewis Portraits, 33. 22 Edwards and Humphreys, Wyndham Lewis Portraits, 78.; Paul Edwards, Richard Humphreys, and Andrej Gasiorek, eds., Wyndham Lewis 1882-1957 (Madrid: Fundación Juan March, 2010), 22. 23 Rothenstein and Lewis, Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism, 5.; Edwards and Humphreys, Wyndham Lewis Portraits, 12.


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surface of the canvas. Long cracks reveal a red paint layer underneath the blue of Praxitella’s

dress on her lap. Paul Edwards had already noted these cracks in 2016 and speculated about a

Vorticist painting underneath.24

A look beneath Praxitella: Atlantic City by Helen Saunders There are at least two types of craquelure found in Praxitella: age cracks and drying

cracks. There are age cracks located mainly in the dark areas of the painting, such as in the

dress. Age cracks are characterised by sharp edges, sometimes accompanied by tenting of the

paint. This usually results from embrittlement of the paint layers caused by external stresses

such as oxidation and fluctuations in relative humidity that cause the paint layers to expand and

contract. This type of craquelure can develop, as the name indicates, over a longer period of

time, whereas drying cracks can appear almost immediately after a painting is finished.

The drying cracks in Praxitella appear in several discrete areas, such as in the centre of

the painting through Praxitella’s hands and on her proper right shoulder, as well as in a few

areas in the light green background (app. II, fig. 14). Drying cracks are characterised by

smoother edges and wider gaps between the edges of the cracks. They are usually restricted to

the surface, while age cracks tend to run through the entire depth of a paint structure.

Analysis of the painting in raking light (app I, plate 3) revealed that certain raised lines

appear to not follow the forms of the upper paint layers of Praxitella, which suggests there is a

painting underneath. In 2016, Edwards presented a drawing by art historian Patricia Leighten

(app. IV, fig. 6).25 The sketch illustrates what Leighten believed she could see of the

composition beneath. As it turns out, Leighten was not too far off: examination of the X-ray

shows more clearly that there is a Vorticist composition with its distinctive geometric forms.

They seem to be elements of a building with rectangular windows and abstract shards that break

away towards the edges of the painting (app. I, plate 4).

These more clearly detectable forms could now be compared with other Vorticist

paintings by Lewis and other Vorticists. In Wyndham Lewis’s monograph are seven Vorticist

oil paintings listed between 1913 and 1915.26 The location of only two of these paintings, in the

collection of the Tate, is known today.27 However, two further works were reproduced in the

24 Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’, 26. 25 Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’, 27. 26 Michel, Wyndham Lewis, 334–36. 27 The paintings are: The Crowd, c. 1914, oil paint and graphite on canvas, 200.7 x 153.7 cm and Workshop, c.1914-1915, oil paint on canvas, 76.5 x 61. cm. Both are part of the Tate collection.


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first issue of Blast, the Vorticist magazine that contained the Vorticist manifesto, which was

signed by eleven artists and was first published in 1914.28 A second issue was published in July

1915. Both issues included woodcuts and photographs of works by the signing and associated

artists, as for example Frederick Etchells. Sadly, not only Lewis’s but also many works by other

Vorticists are lost today. As far as we could ascertain, only one Vorticist painting by Jessica

Dismorr and one by Edward Wadsworth survive.29 Therefore, the magazines are an important

visual source of lost works by the Vorticists.

A work by Helen Saunders called Atlantic City was reproduced in the second issue of

Blast in 1915 (app. IV, fig. 7).30 When the work is flipped upside down, the similarities with

the composition seen in the X-ray of Praxitella become strikingly clear. An overlay of the

flipped reproduced image from Blast and the X-ray shows that the contours of the composition

match the X-ray exactly (app. III, fig. 1). To our eyes, this is convincing proof of the fact that

the painting beneath Praxitella is in fact Atlantic City by Helen Saunders. Six Vorticist oil

paintings were listed in the exhibition catalogue of Saunders’s first, and until today only,

retrospective at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield in

1996. All were considered to be lost.31 Therefore, Atlantic City is the only surviving Vorticist

oil painting that – even if overpainted – still exists.

The image of Atlantic City in the second issue of Blast appears to be a reproduction of

an ink drawing. 32 Island of Laputa is an ink drawing by Saunders also reproduced in the second

issue of Blast. The reproduction quality of Island of Laputa bears a close resemblance to that

of Atlantic City (see app. IV, figs. 8 to 10 for comparison). A comparison with a photograph of

Plan of War by Wyndham Lewis reproduced in the first issue of Blast in 1914 looks different

from the high contrast, flat blocks of black ink with sharp edges, and noisy quality of the

reproductions of Atlantic City and Island of Laputa. Therefore, the reproduction most likely

was an ink drawing, however, there is no record that the work reproduced in Blast has survived.

28 Wyndham Lewis, Blast No.1. Review of the Great English Vortex (London: John Lane London, 1914). Plan of War reproduced on p.va. and Slow Attack on p.vi. 29 Jessica Dismorr, Abstract Composition, c.1915, oil paint on wood, 41.3 x 50.8 cm, Tate Gallery, London and Edward Wadsworth, Vorticist Composition, 1915, oil on canvas, 76.3 x 63.5 cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Brigid Pippin recently challenged the attribution of this painting. She reattributed it to Helen Saunders. Brigid Peppin, ‘The Thyssen “Vorticist Composition”: A New Attribution’, The Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1290 (2010): 590–94. 30 Wyndham Lewis, ed., Blast No.2. Review of the Great English Vortex. (London: John Lane London, 1915).p.57. 31 Brigid Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963 (Oxford and Sheffield: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and The Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1996), 43–55. 32 The observation that Atlantic City is likely to be an ink drawing was corroborated by Brigid Peppin in an email to the authors (19th of June 2020). The authors are thankful to Brigid Peppin for her comment.; Though it cannot be ruled out that the image reproduced in the second issue of Blast was a woodcut or lino-cut, as other Vorticist artists like Edward Wadsworth were producing woodcuts at the time.


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Paint cross-sections show that the palette of Atlantic City is made of discrete passages

of colour. These paint cross-sections combined with XRF analysis suggest that the pigments

are possibly: vermilion mixed with red lake, cobalt-based blue and dark brown made of iron

oxides. This means that the red seen through the craquelure, as previously mentioned, is part of

the composition below (see app. V for paint cross-sections).

The fact that cobalt appears in some XRF results and not in others prompted questions as

to where Lewis would have used the cobalt-based blue pigment for Praxitella. Curiously, XRF

analysis detected cobalt in the red lips, as well as in the rust-coloured vertical member of the

armrest and the bottom left corner of the floor. It is also present in her proper left cheek, but not

in her proper right cheek. It might then be surmised that Praxitella’s dark blue dress would

contain some cobalt, however none was detected in XRF. A paint cross-section taken from the

floor on the lower left side of the painting suggests that the cobalt-based pigment was used in

the Vorticist painting beneath (app. V, fig. 5). This could explain the presence of cobalt in one

cheek and not the other, although it is very unusual for pigments far down in a layer structure

to be picked up by XRF analysis. This is further supported by the X-ray, which shows that one

of the compositional elements from the painting underneath extends through to only one side

of Praxitella’s face. This hypothesis can only be further investigated with the use of Scanning

Election Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy.33There is no varnish layer present

between the Vorticist composition and the interlayer, which could mean that either the Vorticist

composition was unfinished before being painted over, or that Saunders intentionally left the

painting unvarnished.34

But who was this female Vorticist artist? Helen Saunders, together with Jessica Dismorr,

Dorothy Shakespear and Kate Lechmere, were the few women in the Vorticist movement.35

Saunders was born 1885 in Bedford Park and came from a privileged background. She first

studied with Rosa Waugh and for a short period of time at the Slade School in 1907.36 She

became acquainted with Roger Fry’s Post-Impressionistic circle and exhibited together with

them in Paris in 1912.37 A drawing that Lewis made around the same time is the first visual

33 Access to elemental analysis such as SEM-EDX was not available during the time that technical analysis was undertaken. Any pigment analysis discussed in this report is based on the use of XRF and light microscopy. We give special thanks to Aviva Burnstock for her insights into the visual identification of pigments using light microscopy. 34 Of the many oil paintings by Helen Saunders examined by Brigid Peppin, a varnish layer was not present. The authors are thankful for this observation that was shared with the authors in an email (12th of June 2020). 35 Jane Beckett and Deborah Cherry, ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces: Women, Metropolitan Culture and Vorticism’, Women Artists and Modernism, 1998, 36–54. 36 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 37. 37 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 39. Lewis also exhibited his works there.


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trace of their friendship.38 Together with Jessica Dismorr she was the only woman to sign the

Vorticist manifesto in 1914. Her works Atlantic City, Island of Laputa, a colophon and the

poem A Vision of Mud are published in the second issue in 1915.39 She not only contributed her

visual and literary work but also helped with the distribution of the magazine.40

In 1915, Lewis and Saunders conjointly designed the Vorticist room on the upper floor

of the restaurant de La Tour Eiffel, a popular meeting place for the Vorticists.41 Unfortunately,

there are no visual records of this collaborative work.42 When the Vorticist room opened the

next year, only Lewis was praised by the press as the artist and until today Saunders’s

contribution is debated.43 Lewis was very aware of his public appearance and its importance,

as he was trying to establish himself as the charismatic founder of the Vorticist group.

Therefore, he was keen to present himself as the only artist of the Vorticist room at the

restaurant. This did not stop in later years, when he claimed that Vorticism was “what I,

personally said and did, at a certain period”.44 However, the movement was not centred around

him or his art. In fact, Saunders described it rather differently as “a collection of very disparate

artists each working out his own ideas under the aegis of the group”.45

The rediscovery of Atlantic City – a painting made without Lewis’s help and

independently published in Blast – shows that she was also capable of creating large Vorticist

works on canvas. Roberts remembered at least three large oil paintings in the Vorticist room

and Peppin has speculated about the contribution of at least one oil painting by Saunders.46 The

large scale of Atlantic City would support her argument. 47

Lewis and Saunders continued to be in close contact during the war. She was acting as

an unpaid secretary for Lewis.48 Besides her unpaid work for Lewis, Saunders was working

38 Peppin, 10. 39 Peppin, 12.; Lewis, Blast No.2. Review of the Great English Vortex. Island of Laputa is published on p. 8, Atlantic City on p.57 and A Vision of Mud on p.78. 40 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 12. 41 Cork, Art beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England, 215-216.; William Charles Lipke, ‘A History and Analysis of Vorticism’ (Ann Arbor, Mich, University of Wisconsin, 1966), 110.; Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 14.; Beckett and Cherry, ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces’, 40. 42 Cork, Art beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England, 229. 43 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 14.; Jane Beckett and Deborah Cherry, ‘Reconceptualising Vorticism: Women, Modernity, Modernism’, in Blast! Vorticism 1914-1918, by Paul Edwards (Ashgate Press, 2000), 64. 44 Rothenstein and Lewis, Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism, 3. 45 Catherine Elizabeth Heathcock, ‘Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939): Artist, Writer, Vorticist.’ (PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1999), 41. 46 Cork, Art beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England, 220. Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 14.; Beckett and Cherry, ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces’, 40. A similar claim was made by Beckett and Cherry. 47 The authors are thankful for the fruitful conversation with Prof David Peters Corbett who mentioned the importance of the large dimension of the painting (Courtauld Institute of Art, 12th of February 2020). The large dimension of the painting was commented on by Brigid Peppin in an email to the authors (31st of January 2020). 48 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 15.


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full-time for the government.49 This was an exhausting and creatively unproductive time for

her.50 Lewis became seriously ill in 1919.51 By this time, Iris Barry, the sitter for Praxitella,

was pregnant with her first child by Lewis.52 After Lewis had recovered from double pneumonia

he became estranged from Saunders.53 Her work was not included in the Group X exhibition in

1920, an exhibition with many former Vorticists.54 The sudden end of their relationship

depressed her and Lewis claimed that she was stalking him.55 This must have been so extreme

that her family had to intervene.56 Throughout his life, however, Lewis was characterised as

someone with paranoid behaviour. Barry describes that “he wore a hat at home because he

thought that someone was peering through holes in the ceiling, only there was no upper story.”57

Saunders’s private and artistic life had changed after the war. Like her other Vorticist

colleagues, she could not return to her pre-war formal language. In addition, she decided to

withdraw from a public career as an artist.58 This has made it easy to overlook her as an

important artist in the Vorticist movement.

However, the rediscovery of Atlantic City sheds light on her role in the movement.

Atlantic City is an ambitious painting with a complex structure that can be interpreted as a

fragmented modern city.59 The work can stylistically be compared with Lewis’s Workshop

(app. IV, fig. 8), executed around the same time in 1915.60 In both paintings the little squares

resemble windows or panels from modern skyscrapers. The closeness of their formal language

and their shared interest in architectural forms made it easy to see that her works – mainly lost

– were inspired by Lewis. This seems to be supported by recollections of contemporary

colleagues of Saunders such as Frederick Etchells: “If Lewis had painted Kate Greenaway

pictures Saunders would have done them too; she had a schoolgirl ‘pash’ on him”.61 At the

same time, Lewis valued Saunders’s work and saw her as an independent Vorticist artist. He

49 Peppin, 39. 50 Peppin, 16. 51 Peppin, 16 and footnote:72. 52 Paul O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis, Pimlico 477 (London: Pimlico, 2001), 212. 53 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 16. 54 Peppin, 16. 55 Peppin, 16.; Meyers, The Enemy, 57.; O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius, 218. 56 Meyers, The Enemy, 57.; O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius, 218. 57 Sitton, Lady in the Dark, 73. 58 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 17. 59 Beckett and Cherry, ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces’, 47. 60 Lipke, ‘A History and Analysis of Vorticism’, 114–15. Lipke notes the similarities between her work and Lewis’s at the time when the second version of Blast was published. 61 Cork, 2:419.; Cork interviewed Etchells at a time when his work and Vorticism was relatively unknown. Furthermore, it was seen in some circles as clever to downplay women’s achievement. The content of this quote should therefore be read with caution. The authors are thankful that this was pointed out to them in an email by Brigid Peppin (12th of June 2020).


13

mentions her while he talks about Vorticism as “a very gifted woman [sic], would be willing to

go down to history in my company” in 1956.62 In conclusion, her role as an independent artist

should be re-evaluated, and the possibility that her works influenced Lewis should be

considered as well.

Painting over Atlantic City: A work by Saunders or Lewis? Technical analysis showed that there is a lead white interlayer between Atlantic City and

Praxitella, which means that likely either Wyndham Lewis or Helen Saunders overpainted it.

Furthermore, the presence of the interlayer can help assess whether the grid, mentioned earlier

in this paper, relates to Praxitella or Atlantic City. Infrared reflectography using an OSIRIS

camera gives an indication as to where the grid sits in the paint layer structure. Infrared

reflectography records the contrast between light-coloured areas like the ground which reflects

IR radiation, and the carbon-based underdrawing material which absorbs IR radiation. Lead

normally appears transparent in infrared; however, it is possible that if painted in thick enough

layers, lead can become reflective in infrared. Therefore, the composition underneath Praxitella

could be blocked out by the very dense lead white layer. This would mean that the grid belongs

to Praxitella. In the IR image made with the OSIRIS camera, there is no suggestion of the

abstract painting underneath, which supports this hypothesis. In addition, although Saunders

used grids in her paintings there are no known works of hers with a diamond-shaped grid. Other

works by Lewis, however, show such a diamond-shaped grid, as discussed above. Therefore,

the grid most likely relates to Praxitella.

But does this mean that Lewis overpainted Atlantic City? An oil painting, Atlantic City

was shown at the Vorticist exhibition at the Doré Gallery in 1915. 63 While Lewis was in the

army, Saunders helped to organise the second Vorticist exhibition in New York in 1916. She

must have had access to his drawings as she sent them to the exhibition in New York.64

Michel, the author of Lewis’s monograph, published a list that Lewis probably created

as a sort of inventory in case he would die in 1917.65 In the inventory Lewis noted that “the

Christopher Columbus is quite unfit for exhibition, and Miss Saunders will paint that out for

me.”66 The painting referred to is lost today but Saunders wrote to Michel in 1962 that she did

62 Original source of the interview: The Vorticists,' Vogue, no.221, September 1956. Reprinted in: Heathcock, ‘Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939)’, 81.; An earlier letter quoted by Heathcock shows Lewis’s admiration for Saunders as well: Heathcock, 88–89. 63 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 39. 64 Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, Pound/Lewis: The Letters of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, ed. Timothy Materer (London: Faber, 1985), 27. 65 Michel, Wyndham Lewis, 447. In the collection of rare books department at Cornell University. 66 Michel, 447.


14

not paint over it for Lewis and that he had probably changed his mind.67 It remains unclear

whether Saunders ever overpainted any of Lewis’s works. In fact, the painting was not in her

possession but in Lewis’s mother’s house at 43 Oxford Road, Ealing at the time.68

It is unclear how and in what condition Atlantic City came into Lewis’s possession. In

light of the inventory, Saunders could have painted it out herself and given it to him.69 However,

this seems unlikely for a number of reasons. During the war, there was perhaps no need to paint

out the painting as neither she nor Lewis were working much. After the war, Lewis refused to

see her, and it is unlikely that she sent him such a large painting under such circumstances.70 It

seems even less probable that she would have sent him a painted-out canvas. In addition, she

did not always know his address.71 Furthermore, even though it has been noted that Saunders

reused canvases, there is little evidence of this happening during that time.72 A letter written by

Saunders to Dismorr at the end of 1917 indicates that she still believed in the Vorticist

movement, as she talks about sending Roberts two copies of Blast “who is fighting and also

attempting Vorticist propaganda”.73 Moreover, she seems to have kept some of her Vorticist

compositions. At least two more paintings have survived the war. One Vorticist painting was

stolen from her flat in around 1955.74 Another one was used by her sister to cover a larder

floor.75 It is also known that she gave some paintings to her friends. Therefore, Atlantic City

could have been a gift by Saunders to Lewis. Saunders owned drawings, some of which were

possibly gifts by Lewis, and she could have returned the favour by giving him Atlantic City.76

Wyndham Lewis habitually reworked or reused canvases. Portrait of the Artist as the

Painter Raphael, shown together with Praxitella at the Tyros and Portraits exhibition in 1921,

also has a Vorticist composition underneath (revealed by an X-ray taken at the National Portrait

Gallery, London).77 In addition, the painting Iris Tree, also shown in Tyros and Portraits was,

67 Michel, 335. 68 O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius, 184. 69 The authors are thankful to Paul Edwards for this idea that he proposed to us in an email (3rd February 2020). 70 Lewis and Saunders’s estrangement lasted probably until mid-1922, when she sat for a portrait drawing. Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 16. The authors are thankful that this was also pointed out to them in an email by Paul Edwards (12th June 2020). 71 O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius, 218. 72 Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 18. 73 Heathcock, ‘Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939)’, Chapter 4, footnote:4. 74 Heathcock, 43, footnote:24. 75 Brigid Peppin, ‘Women That a Movement Forgot’, Tate Etc., 2011, https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-22-summer-2011/women-movement-forgot. 76 Vorticist Composition is now in the Tate collection and was previously owned by Saunders. However, it is unclear if it was a gift or if she bought it from him. Cork, Art beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England, 236. And Peppin, Helen Saunders 1885-1963, 39.; Composition in Red and Mauve now in the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid was also owned by Saunders. Beckett and Cherry, ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces’, 40. 77 Edwards, Humphreys, and Gasiorek, 193.


15

according to the memory of his wife, later painted out by Lewis himself.78 Two portraits which

Lewis was working on in 1922 and 1923, Edith Sitwell and Richmond Noble, also have an

underlying composition.79 Edwards notes that from the six oil paintings that Lewis painted

between 1918-1919, only the two he painted for public collections survived.80 Considering all

this, it seems plausible that Lewis himself overpainted the Vorticist composition by Saunders.

Possible reasons for why Lewis could have overpainted Atlantic City are that he may

have considered Vorticism a failed movement. In that case the act of overpainting a Vorticist

composition, even if it was not his own work, would have been a symbolic gesture. Or the

canvas could have been reused for economic reasons. Iris Barry recalls that Lewis was short on

money during the time of their relationship.81 Another possibility is that Lewis painted it out

because of his complicated personal relationship with Saunders during that time. However,

purely personal reasons seem less likely as Lewis reused not only Saunders’s canvas but also

his own in the Tyros and Portraits exhibition.82

Conclusion

Saunders’s Vorticist colleague Jessica Dismorr saw Praxitella at the Leicester Galleries

in 1921 and congratulated Lewis on the painting. She asked why he hadn’t produced more of

these paintings, and he replied that to produce such a painting he needed “the courage of

seventeen buffaloes to work … [in] the conditions we live under … I only have the courage

about ten.” 83 Not only did Dismorr realise that Praxitella is a masterpiece by Lewis, but so do

scholars. In contrast, works by Saunders and her female Vorticist colleagues have largely been

forgotten. Dismorr could not have known that Lewis, in creating such a masterpiece, needed

the courage of seventeen buffaloes and possibly the strength to destroy an impressive work by

Saunders in the process. It took nearly a hundred years to rediscover Atlantic City. Hopefully,

our findings will spark more interest in her work that was and still is overshadowed by Lewis’s.

The re-discovery of Atlantic City gives hope that there are other hidden Vorticist paintings

waiting to be found.

78 Michel, Wyndham Lewis, 338.; The painting A Tyro about to breakfast that was also shown at the Tyros and Portraits exhibition is also lost today. 79 The painting underneath Edith Sitwell also seems to be a Vorticist composition. The portrait of Richmond Noble was not painted out before and does not seem to have a Vorticist composition underneath. Paul Edwards, ‘An Unknown Portrait by Wyndham Lewis’, The Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies 3 (2012): 1-2. 80 Edwards, Wyndham Lewis, 240. 81 Edwards, ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’, 15. 82 The authors assume that the painting underneath Portrait of the Artist as the Painter Raphael is by Lewis based on stylistic comparison of the X-ray and other works by Lewis. 83 O’Keeffe, Some Sort of Genius, 228.


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Bibliography

Beckett, Jane, and Deborah Cherry. ‘Modern Women, Modern Spaces: Women, Metropolitan Culture and Vorticism’. Women Artists and Modernism, 1998, 36–54.

———. ‘Reconceptualising Vorticism: Women, Modernity, Modernism’. In Blast! Vorticism 1914-1918, by Paul Edwards, 59–72. Ashgate Press, 2000.

Cork, Richard. Art beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985.

———. Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age: Origins and Development. Vol. 1. Vol.2. University of California Press, 1976.

Edwards, Paul. ‘An Unknown Portrait by Wyndham Lewis’. The Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies 3 (2012): 1–3.

———. ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’ Leeds, 2016.

———. Wyndham Lewis: Painter and Writer. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2000.

Edwards, Paul, and Richard Humphreys. Wyndham Lewis Portraits. London: National Portrait Gallery, 2008.

Edwards, Paul, Richard Humphreys, and Andrej Gasiorek, eds. Wyndham Lewis 1882-1957. Madrid: Fundación Juan March, 2010.

Ezra Pound, and Wyndham Lewis. Pound/Lewis: The Letters of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis. Edited by Timothy Materer. London: Faber, 1985.

Heathcock, Catherine Elizabeth. ‘Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939): Artist, Writer, Vorticist.’ PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1999.

Holt, Ysanne. ‘The Camden Town Group: Then and Now’. In The Camden Town Group in Context. London: Tate Research Publication, 2012. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/ysanne-holt-the-camden-town-group-then-and-now-r1105679.

Lewis, Wyndham. Blast No.1. Review of the Great English Vortex. London: John Lane London, 1914.

———, ed. Blast No.2. Review of the Great English Vortex. London: John Lane London, 1915.

———. ‘Tyros and Portraits’ Catalouge of an Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Wyndham Lewis. London: The Leicester Galleries, 1921.

Lipke, William Charles. ‘A History and Analysis of Vorticism’. University of Wisconsin, 1966.

Meyers, Jeffrey. The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis. Boston; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Michel, Walter. Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings. With an Introductory Essay by Hugh Kenner. Thames and Hudson London, 1971.

O’Keeffe, Paul. Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis. Pimlico 477. London: Pimlico, 2001.

Peppin, Brigid. Helen Saunders 1885-1963. Oxford and Sheffield: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and The Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1996.

———. ‘The Thyssen “Vorticist Composition”: A New Attribution’. The Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1290 (2010): 590–94.

———. ‘Women That a Movement Forgot’. Tate Etc., 2011. https://www.tate.org.uk/tate- etc/issue-22-summer-2011/women-movement-forgot.

Peters Corbett, David, ed. Wyndham Lewis and the Art of Modern War. Cambridge, England ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Rothenstein, John, and Wyndham Lewis, eds. Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism: A Tate Gallery


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Exhibition Circulated by the Arts Council. London: Tate Britain and Arts Council of Great Britain, 1956.

Sitton, Robert. Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the Art of Film. Columbia University Press, 2014.

Smith, Alistair. ‘Walter Sickert’s Drawing Practice and the Camden Town Ethos’. Edited by Helen Bonett, Ysanne Holt, and Jennifer Mundy. The Camden Town Group in Context, 2012. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/alistair-smith-walter-sickerts-drawing-practice-and-the-camden-town-ethos-r1104369.

Appendix I: Key Stage Images

Plate 1: Normal lightWyndham Lewis, Praxitella, c.1921, oil on canvas, 142.2 x 101.6 cm, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds.

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Plate 2: IR Osiris scan

19


Plate 3: Raking light, left

20


Plate 4: X-Radiograph

21

Appendix II: Detail Images

Figure 2: Photomicrograph, wet-in-wet technique

Figure 1: Photomicrograph, yellow hem

Figure 3: Photomicrograph, blue painted over pink

Figure 4: Photomicrograph, purple painted overbeige-grey

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Figure 5: Photomicrograph, hair painted over background

Figure 6: Photomicrograph, background painted over hair

Figure 8: Photomicrograph, background painted over armrest

Figure 9: Photomicrograph, armrest painted over background

Figure 7: Photomicrograph, hair extended over background again

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Figure 10: Detail, IR Osiris, folds and wrinkles in fabric

Figure 11: Detail, IR Osiris, armrest moved up Figure 12: Detail, IR Osiris, planning stages of shoes

Figure 13: Detail, IR Osiris, grid at upper left corner 24


Figure 14: Detail, drying cracks

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Appendix III: Diagrams

Figure 1: Diagram, x-ray and Atlantic City Overlay

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Appendix III: Diagrams

Figure 2: Diagram extending lines of grid over IR Osiris image

27

Appendix IV: Reference Images

Figure 1: Wyndham Lewis, Seated Figure, c.1921, oil on canvas, 75.70 x 63.00 cm, National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh. (Photograph by Antonia Reeve).

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Figure 2: Wyndham Lewis, Edwin Evans, 1922-1923, oil on canvas, 149.00 x 107.80 cm, National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh. (Photograph by Antonia Reeve).

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Figure 3: David Bomberg, Ju-Jitsu, 1913, oil paint on board, 61.9 x 61.9 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

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Figure 4: Wyndham Lewis, Woman Seated in Armchair, c. 1921, drawing, Museum of Modern Art, New York.


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Figure 5: Wyndham Lewis, Portrait of the Artist as the Painter Raphael, 1921, oil on canvas over hardboard, 76.3 x 68.6 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.

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Figure 6: Drawing by Patricia Leighten in: ‘Girl Reading – Wyndham Lewis and Iris Barry. Talk given by Paul Edwards to the Leeds Art Fund to Mark the Purchase of the Drawing, 2016.’ Leeds, 2016, p.26.


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Figure 7: Helen Saunders, Atlantic City, c.1915, reproduced in Blast II, pg. 57.

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Figure 8: Wyndham Lewis, Workshop, oil on canvas, c.1914-195, 76.5 x 61 cm, Tate Gallery, London.


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Figure 9: Helen Saunders, Island of Laputa, Pen and ink, and paper collage on wove paper, c. 1915, 27 x 23.2 cm, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Figure 10: Helen Saunders, Island of Laputa, c. 1915, reproduced in Blast II, pg. 8.

Figure 11: Helen Saunders, Atlantic City, c.1915, reproduced in Blast II, pg. 57.


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Figure 1: Sample containing inclusion taken from background at top right, NL

Figure 2: Sample containing inclusion taken from background at top right, UV

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Appendix V: Paint Cross-sections

Layer no. Description Elements (XRF) Pigments Indicated (XRF results in combination with light microscopy)

3 Glassy inclusion

2 Light green Fe, Cu, As, Pb Emerald green, lead white, iron oxides

1 Brown Fe Iron oxides

1

2

3

1

2

3

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Figure 3: Sample from dress taken from Praxitella’sproper right shoulder, NL

Figure 4: Sample from dress taken from Praxitella’sproper right shoulder, UV



8 Varnish

7 Dark blue Fe Prussian blue

6 Dark blue Cr, Cu, As, Zn Viridian, emerald green, zinc white

5 Dark blue/green Cr, Cu, As Viridian, emerald green, chrome yellow

4 Light yellow Cr, Hg, As Chrome yellow, vermilion

3 Orange Cr, Hg, As Chrome yellow, vermilion, red lake

2 Dark Yellow Fe, Cr Yellow ochre, chrome yellow

1 White interlayer Pb Lead white

1

2

345

6

78

1

2

345

6

78

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Figure 5: Sample of purple paint taken from floor under Praxitella’s feet, NL

Figure 6: Sample of purple paint taken from floor under Praxitella’s feet, UV



7 Varnish

6 Purple Ultramarine, red lake

5 Light grey Fe Iron oxides, extender


3 Bright blue Co Cobalt based blue

2 White imprimatura

Pb Lead white, extender

1 Ground Ca, Zn Natural chalk, zinc white

1

2

3

4567

1

2

3

4567


Figure 7: Sample of dress taken from under Praxitella’s hands, NL

Figure 8: Sample of dress taken from under Praxitella’s hands, UV

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8 Varnish

7 Dark blue Fe Prussian blue

6 Dark blue Cr, Cu, As, Zn Viridian, emerald green, zinc white

5 Dark blue/green Cr, Cu, As Viridian, emerald green

4 Dark yellow Fe Yellow ochre, red lake

3 Light green Cr, Cu, As Viridian, emerald green


1 Red Hg, As Vermilion, red lake

1

2

3

45

6

7

8

1

2

3

45

6

7

8


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Figure 9: Sample of purple paint taken from lower left side of floor, NL

Figure 10: Sample of purple paint taken from lower left side of floor, UV


8 Varnish

7 Purple Ultramarine, red lake

6 Light grey Fe Iron oxides, extender

5 Yellow Fe Yellow ochre


3 Brown Fe, Mn Iron oxides, umber

2 White imprimatura

Pb Lead white, extender

1 Ground Ca, Zn Natural chalk, zinc white

1

2

3

4

5

6

78

1

2

3

4

5

6

78

Beneath Wyndham Lewis’s Praxitella

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