Robert Anning Bell (British, 1863-1933)
'Ariadne'
signed 'R.A.Bell' (lower right)
polychrome plaster relief
61 x 34cm (24 x 13 3/8in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 4 November 1994, lot 81.

Exhibited
Probably London, The Royal Academy, 1896, no.1872.

In the 1890s Robert Anning Bell became involved with George Frampton, with whom he had shared a studio, and through him the Arts and Crafts movement. He and Frampton mastered the technique for producing hand-coloured polychrome plaster reliefs in the style of Luca della Robbia. The present lot shows the Cretan princess Ariadne abandoned on the Greek island of Naxos by Theseus, whose ship sails away in the distance.