Sunday, 9 October 2022

La Belle Dame Sans Merci


If you were wondering what the missing painting looks like, in this scene from the new trailer, then we can tell you that it is La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a Pre-Raphaelite work by the artist Frank Bernard Dicksee (1853 - 1928). 


It hangs in Bristol Museum & Art gallery, where the scene with Sophie Aldred was filmed. The subject matter derives from a poem by John Keats:
"I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful – a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild… I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For side long would she bend, and sing A faery’s song."
Interestingly, the teaser comments talked about iconic paintings being defaced - not stolen. 
Does this work have any relevance to the episode? Does some knightly figure encounter a femme fatale? Or did they simply need a space on a gallery wall big enough for an image of their own and so picked this one at random? I know which one I'd vote for...

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