Ogier the Dane was an important character in early medieval chansons de gestes. He features in several French narratives as an important member of Charlemagne’s court, although there are also versions of his story in Danish, Icelandic, Italian and Castilian.

During the 19th century artists continued to draw inspiration from medieval romances and the Arthurian legends. In the English speaking world the legend of Ogier featured in Andrew Lang’s The Red Book of Romance, 1905, accompanied by illustrations from Henry Meynell Rheam. Lang’s source, however, was a poem by William Morris ‘Ogier the Dane’, Earthly Paradise, 1866. Morris introduces his poem by detailing the argument that grew up between the six fairies who gathered to celebrate Ogier’s birth and endow gifts upon the young child:
‘When Ogier was born, six fay ladies came to the cradle where he lay, and gave him various gifts, as to be brave & happy & the like; but the sixth gave him to be her love when he have lived long in the world: so Ogier grew up and became the greatest of knights, and at last, after many years, fell into the hands of that fay, and with her, as the story tells, he lives now’ (W. Morris, Collected Works, London, 1910, vol. IV, p. 210).

The decorative and descriptive scrolls in the present work were clearly inspired by Morris’s text, in some areas copying the wording almost exactly. Despite both Morris and Lang’s publications the subject did not gain widespread popularity amongst the artistic community as inspiration for subject matter. Only one painting entitled The birth of Ogier the Dane is known to have been exhibited, and that was by the American artist Robert Van Vorst Sewell, first shown at the National Gallery of Design in New York in 1904. It went on to be exhibited in St Louis later that year, and New York, again, in 1909. Frustratingly no contemporary images or descriptions of the picture are recorded. However, a comparison of present picture with autograph works by Sewell such as Pysche seeks love (Bonham’s, London, 27 September 2017, lot 108) and another mythological scene of a seated woman and angel (Jeffrey Evans, Mount Crawford, Virginia, 22 June 2007, lot 221) clearly shows the same hand. The faces, feet and fabrics used are all in the same style as those in The birth of Ogier the Dane, and there is a notable tendency in his pictures for the feet to almost float off the ground. Tantalisingly there is a remnant of an exhibition label on the reverse of the present work reading ‘Members form – exempt’ which may correspond to labels used by the National Gallery of Design around this date.

Sewell appears to have been an artist of some variety, later paintings include a number of landscapes. However, there are a large number of Pre-Raphaelite inspired works amongst his oeuvre on romantic and mythological subjects, including several relating to the legend of Pysche. The stylistic and technical similarities between these and the present work combined with the incredible rarity of the subject in the artistic canon leads to one conclusion: the author of the present work must be Robert Van Vorst Sewell.

We are grateful to Scott T. Buckle for his assistance and research that enabled the attribution of this picture.