Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate (National Gallery of Australia)
The National Gallery of Australia’s current Pre-Raphaelite survey exhibition, co-curated by Carol Jacobi from Tate and Lucina Ward from the NGA, feels like a family reunion. John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (1851–52) and John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott (1888) have made the long voyage from England to join stellar works from Australian collections, such as Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?’ St Luke, Chapter XIV, verse 5 (c.1875–90) from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Also in attendance are lesser-known pieces, such as Robert Braithwaite Martineau’s Kit’s writing lesson (1852), that, on occasion, dare to outshine some of the more iconic images.
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