The Lady Clare

The Lady Clare
John Waterhouse, 1900

"It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give to his cousin, Lady Clare."

From Lady Clare - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

This John Waterhouse painting was inspired by the Victorian poet, Alfred Tennyson. The story goes like this: Lady Clare was a rich heiress and Lord Ronald was her cousin. They were in love and engaged to be married. Lord Ronald gave her a pure white doe. Right before their wedding, the old nurse revealed that the real Lady Clare had died at birth, and she had substituted her own child. She begged Clare not to tell Ronald, but she dressed as a rustic maid (above) and told the truth. He accepted her of course, and loved her for herself and not her riches.

Manon Gropius

The girl with a pet deer reminds me of another story that happened many years after Waterhouse painted Lady Clare. But this story is sad and true. Alban Berg (1885-1935) was an Austrian composer who became friends with Gustav and Alma Mahler. After Mahler's death, Alma remarried and in 1916 they had a daughter named Manon, called "Mutzi." She was full of charm, beauty and intelligence and seemed somehow to "come from another world." She died from polio at the age of 18, and it was a deep blow to Berg who had watched her grow up. He worked non-stop on a violin concerto dedicated to Manon, inscribed "To the Memory of an Angel." He died shortly after and it was his last finished work.

Alban Berg, 1910
by Arnold Schoenberg

Here's a description of the lovely young Manon, written by a family friend:

The glass doors of Alma's music room afforded a view of a beautiful terrace and of the garden beyond. I can still see an unearthly apparition we beheld when we sat there one day after luncheon. An angelically beautiful girl of about fifteen appeared at the door with a young deer at her side. Her hand on the animal's slender neck, she gave us an unembarrassed little smile and disappeared again.

-Bruno Walter, remembering Manon Gropius

Red chalk study for Lady Clare
John Waterhouse