62 cm × 44 cm (24 in × 17 in
Wikimedia Commons
Morgan le Fay is an 1864 oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite
Group of English artists formed in 1848 to counter what they saw as the corrupting influence of the late-Renaissance painter Raphael. painter Frederick Sandys, portraying the legendary witch and King Arthur’s jealous half-sister, Morgan le Fay. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1864.[1]
The painting shows Morgana standing in front of a loom on which she has woven an enchanted robe, designed to consume the body of King Arthur by fire. She is passing a flaming lamp back and forth as she chants her spell. The model for Morgan le Fay was Sandys’ mistress, the Romany woman Keomi Gray.[1]
The picture is now in the collection of the Birmingham Museums Trust, to which it was donated by the John Feeney Bequest Fund in 1925.[2]