The De Morgan Collection, The De Morgan Foundation, United Kingdom.
Location History:
The painting was prominently featured in the 2019-2020 major exhibition Pre-Raphaelite Sisters at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was also loaned for the 2022 Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries exhibition at the Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.
If you look at Evelyn De Morgan’s Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund (finished around 1905), you’re getting a brilliant takedown of a heavily biased medieval myth.
The basic backstory is a 12th-century legend about King Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his mistress Rosamund Clifford. The folklore claims Henry tried to hide Rosamund inside a massive, complicated labyrinth at Woodstock. But Eleanor supposedly used a red thread to navigate the maze, track her down, and murder her with poison.
De Morgan paints the exact, tense moment Eleanor discovers her. You can see the Queen gripping a vial of poison, ready to act. But what’s really interesting is how De Morgan actively mocks the patriarchal spin of the original story. Historically, society couldn't handle the idea of a woman pulling off a calculated plot on her own, so they just wrote Eleanor off as a wicked witch. De Morgan leans into this so hard that it becomes almost absurd. She surrounds Eleanor with bizarre, floating monkey heads and winged dragons to symbolize "bad magic." On the flip side, she paints "fair" Rosamund surrounded by overly sickly-sweet weeping cherubs and peaceful doves.
By exaggerating these visual tropes, De Morgan is highlighting how easily society demonizes powerful, independent women. But the most striking part of the whole composition is who isn't there. The two women are locked in this deadly, morally heavy confrontation, yet King Henry—the guy whose infidelity actually caused the entire situation—is completely missing from the canvas. He entirely escapes judgment. It’s a flawless feminist critique of a massive historical double standard.
The artwork title Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund (alternatively titled Fair Rosamund and Queen Eleanor) refers to a highly popular narrative in 19th-century British art, most famously rendered by Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist painters. Depending on the specific piece you are referencing, it most commonly points to the celebrated oil painting by Symbolist artist Evelyn De Morgan (1901–1902), though iconic versions also exist by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1861/1862) and Frank Cadogan Cowper (c. 1920)
