Arthur Rackham

The Dance in Cupid’s Alley

1904

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Artist: Arthur Rackham 1867–1939
Medium: Pen and ink and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Frame: 464 × 771 × 40 mm
support: 325 × 597 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Major-General Sir Mathew Gossett KCB 1909
Reference: N02479

Catalogue entry

N02479 THE DANCE IN CUPID'S ALLEY 1904

Inscr. ‘Arthur Rackham '04.’ b.r. on scroll.
Pen and watercolour, 12 3/4×23 1/2 (32·5×59·5).
Bequeathed by Major-General Sir Matthew Gossett 1909.
Exh: Centenary Exhibition, R.W.S., summer 1904 (226).
Repr: Studio, XXXIV, 1905, 197; Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures 1913, pl.37 (in colour); Derek Hudson, Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work, 1960, p.39 (in colour).

An illustration to a poem by Austin Dobson, which is inscribed on the back:

O Love's but a dance
Where time plays the fiddle!

Strange dance! 'Tis free to Rank and Rags
Here no distinction flatters,

Here Riches shakes its money-bags
And Poverty its tatters:

Church, Army, Navy, Physic, Law:
Maid, Mistress, Master, Valet:

Long locks, grey hairs, bald heads and a'—
They bob in ‘Cupid's Alley’.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II