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September 4

Where is The Vampire?

The Vampire is probably the most famous painting by Philip Burne-Jones. I have only ever seen low quality black-and-white reproductions like our copy. Do we know where the original is, and can it be seen? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:19, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few versions which are not black and white. This blog has a version of the painting, and there's another version of the painting on Pinterest (there is no information on the actual page) where the halftone print pattern is visible, so it's apparently a scan from a book. Both appear to be from the same poor-quality reproduction, I don't know as yet where the actual painting is. This other blog says that the painting was exhibited side-by-side with Rudyard Kipling's poem. (The referenced site Postcard Roundup has been taken over for some sort of slot-machine spam purpose.) It also claims "the original painting is in monochrome", but I doubt it. This art gallery site says of The Vampire "its present location is unknown". Card Zero (talk) 04:13, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some ignorant boob took it out into direct sunlight and it burst into flames. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:15, 4 September 2022 (UTC) [reply]

I think actually the original is monochromatic: As to The Vampire [...] the Chicago Journal captured the ambiance of the painting’s exhibition at Russell’s Gallery at 40 Madison Street. “The show opened at 10 o'clock,” the paper reported dutifully. “A small boy in buttons barred the way to the great treasure until the ante of 25 cents was produced.” The monochromatic painting was displayed before a plush red backdrop, and illuminated by electrical light. A visit to the morgue, the paper opined, could produce “just about the same feeling” as Phil’s traveling horror show. from Vampires: encounters with the undead. Card Zero (talk) 07:37, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is monochromatic, but not monochrome. On page 237 of the book you linked we read "As an added metaphor, merging style with subject, Phil decided to drain the color from his palette. He painted The Vampire in monochromatic tones — chalky greens predominating, with a weird hint of bluish moonlight". DuncanHill (talk) 09:15, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This blog post, apparently based on David J. Skal (2006), Vampires: Encounters With the Undead, says:

Though the painting 'The Vampire' is now lost - sold into a private collection, languishing somewhere or destroyed ... possibly by Philip's own hand, its legacy and Kipling's words were to live on...

Alansplodge (talk) 10:43, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I see Card Zero has already linked the Skal book above. This text appears on pages 256-257:

But The Vampire disappeared, as if into thin air. Attempts to locate it over the years have been fruitless. In the late 1940s, Columbia Pictures asked the New York Public Library's fine arts division to help locate the canvas, presumeably in connection with the Theda Bara biography they were planning to (but never actually did) film. The library's researchers turned up a blank. Margot Peters, the most recent biographer of Mrs Patrick Campbell, was told that the painting was at the Tate Gallery in London, but upon making enquiries she found that they had no record of the thing whatsover. Did Phil sell the painting? Or did he destoy it, fed up at last with the grief and public ridicule it had caused him? It is perhaps appropriate that we may never know the truth.

Alansplodge (talk) 11:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]