What does the peacock feather symbolise? The great British art quiz

Evelyn De Morgan’s painting The Prisoner (1907-1908). Photograph: De Morgan Collection

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home of the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues, by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK sets the questions.

Today, these come from the De Morgan Collection. Featuring Pre-Raphaelite-style paintings by Evelyn De Morgan and ceramics by her husband William, this unique collection preserves the artistic legacy of a radical Victorian couple. They believed art could create a better, more beautiful world. Evelyn’s sister founded the collection, exhibited today in museums and galleries across the UK.

You can see art from the De Morgan Collection on Art UK here. Find out more on the collection’s website here.

1. 

   Which retired Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood "stunner" (the Brotherhood’s own word for a beautiful artist’s model) did Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919) use as her muse for her painting The Hourglass?

   1. Fanny Cornforth

   2. Lizzie Siddall

   3. Jane Morris

   4. Maria Zambaco

2. 

   The peacock feather is the symbol of what?

   1. Immortality

   2. Beauty

   3. Imprisonment

   4. Faith

3. 

   Before embarking on a career in ceramic design, William De Morgan (1839-1917) worked for 10 years in which medium?

   1. Stained glass

   2. Gouache

   3. Watercolour

   4. Oil

4. 

   Which art school, established in London in 1871, did Evelyn De Morgan attend?

   1. The Royal Academy

   2. Westminster Drawing Academy

   3. The Slade School of Art

   4. The National Gallery

5. 

   William De Morgan met Evelyn Pickering at Walter Bagehot’s fancy dress party in 1883. She was dressed as a tube of "rose madder" red-coloured paint. What was William De Morgan’s chat-up line?

   1. Roses are red, violets are blue

   2. Good job I brought my paintbrush

   3. I’ve come as blue. Wanna make a lovely purple?

   4. I’m madder still!

6. 

   Evelyn De Morgan was a politically driven artist, using her canvases to promote her own ideals. Which campaign is she supporting with her painting The Storm Spirits (1900)?

   1. Factory Reform Act (1833)

   2. Prison Reform Act (1898)

   3. Women's Suffrage Movement

   4. The Boer Wars (1899–1902)

7. 

   Evelyn De Morgan often used literary sources to inspire her artworks. Which book featuring mermaids might have inspired her painting The Sea Maidens (1885)?

   1. The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley (1863)

   2. The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen (1836)

   3. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (1873)

   4. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

8. 

   Can you guess which mythological woman is depicted in this painting?

   1. Venus

   2. Minerva

   3. Cassandra

   4. Juno

Solutions

1:C - Spotted by Pre-Raphaelite founder Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Oxford, while he was painting murals for the Oxford Union debating hall ceiling, Jane Burden went on to be a central figure in late Victorian art. She married Rossetti’s designer friend William Morris and was a muse for many pictures by Rossetti, with whom she had a well-documented affair. Evelyn De Morgan painted her long after Rossetti and Morris’s death, showing her more honestly in the later years of her own life. Image: The Hourglass, 1904-1905, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 2:A - A lady sits in her prison, yearning towards the light beyond the prison window in De Morgan’s painting. Her isolation is expressed on one side by the heavy iron bars, on the other by her chained wrists. This is an allegory of the soul, imprisoned in its mortal shell of the body, awaiting the release of death to enable it to move to the light and immortality. The De Morgans were spiritualists, and this inspired many of Evelyn’s paintings. Image: The Prisoner, 1907-1908, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 3:A - William De Morgan met William Morris in 1863 and began designing stained glass alongside Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. This beautiful painting, The Resurrection of Christ, is a cartoon for a stained glass window at St Feock parish church at Feock in Cornwall. Image: The Resurrection of Christ (cartoon for stained glass window), 1863-1872, William De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 4:C - Felix Slade was a wealthy lawyer and art collector who established the Slade School of Art at the University of London to offer an alternative to the Royal Academy. It admitted women on the same terms as men, meaning Evelyn De Morgan could draw from life models and take anatomy lessons. She was therefore an expert at rendering the human form. Image: Moonbeams Dipping into the Sea, 1910-1914, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 5:D - William De Morgan was well known for his sense of humour. Edward Burne-Jones’s wife Georgiana states in her biography of her husband: "Our friendship with William De Morgan, son of Professor Augustus De Morgan, began in Great Russell Street, when his rare wit attracted us before we knew of his other lovable qualities." Image: William De Morgan, 1893, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 6:C - In 1889, Evelyn De Morgan signed the declaration in favour of women’s suffrage. She believed that women should have equal rights to men and should be able to vote. Public opinion at the time was that the natural place of women was in the home, as mothers. De Morgan ridicules this by personifying the natural forces thunder, lightning and rain as strong women, questioning their "natural place". Image: The Storm Spirits, 1900, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 7:B - In the original story, the Little Mermaid is given legs by the sea witch in exchange for her voice, so she can meet the human prince. He rejects her, so her sisters sell their hair for a dagger for her to avenge her love. Distraught, she kills herself. Her soul, neither mortal nor immortal, is trapped in limbo for 300 years. De Morgan was interested in the spiritualist undertones of the novel. Image: The Sea Maidens, 1885-1886, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection., 8:C - Evelyn De Morgan painted mythological women to illuminate characters often overlooked in art in favour of their male counterparts. De Morgan’s depiction of the Trojan wars ignores Achilles and Odysseus and focuses instead on Cassandra. Blessed by the gods with prophecy, but cursed so no one would believe her, she predicted the Trojan horse debacle and despairs as Troy burns behind her. Image: Cassandra, 1898, Evelyn De Morgan. Credit: De Morgan Collection.

Scores

1. 6 and above.

   You're a De Morgan genius!

2. 0 and above.

   Better luck next time!

3. 3 and above.

   Not bad!