tour 6 of 7
The Queen of Sheba
John Duncan, Ivory, Apes and Peacocks, a watercolour
The Queen of Sheba became a modern icon of
female power and beauty and has been the subject of a number of
films, the most popular, Solomon and
Sheba (1959) starring Yul Brynner as King
Solomon and Gina Lollobrigida as the Arabian
queen.
This watercolour, by
the Scottish Symbolist John Duncan, is one of the most flamboyant
representations of the Queen of Sheba in the twentieth century and
blends together the familiar themes of Orientalism, eroticism and
history. The bare-breasted Queen sits cross-legged in a palanquin,
high atop an elephant's back; her skin is as white as the
elephant's tusks or the bleached peacocks strutting
alongside her colourful train, and her long hair is
golden-blonde.
The title is
taken from the Old Testament description of Solomon's navy
of Tharshish, which ‘once in three years came ... bringing gold,
and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks' (1 Kings
10:22).
The watercolour was
first exhibited in the annual exhibition of the Royal Scottish
Academy in Edinburgh in 1923. At the same time, a play written by
Jonkheer Six called The Queen of
Sheba was performed in Amsterdam. Surviving
production photographs of this show the actors costumed in swathes
of uncut fabrics (Indian shawls and saris), not unlike those worn
by the figures in Duncan's
watercolour.