Images: donated by owner.

• Title(s): Danaë (Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, 1884; Illustrated London News, 2 Apr 1887, p25); Danae (The Art Journal, 1884, p242; The Bury and Norwich Post, Tue 21 Aug, 1900, p6).
• Description: A young woman looking directly at the viewer. She is wearing a white bonnet, long-sleeved dark brown top and rough-looking grey skirt. She site in front of a yellow-flowered (gorse?) bush, holding her skirt with her right hand and a large bundle of sticks on her lap with her left.
• Media: ?
• Dimensions: 114 x 74 cm (private communication).
• Signature/date/other text: signed and dated “Annie L. Robinson / 1883” (private communication).
• History:
  • 1883 – Signed and dated 1883 (private communication).
  • 1884 – Exhibited Royal Academy, no. 864 (Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, 1884).
  • 1887 – Exhibited The [London] Society of Lady Artists, Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly (Illustrated London News, 2 Apr 1887, p25).
  • 1887 – Manchester Society of Women Artists, “100 guineas” (reference?).
  • 1900 – Woman’s Exhibition, Earl’s Court, London, “£136 10 0”.
• Location: private collection.

The Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Standard, 21 Aug 1900, p6 : … a girl with a sun bonnet, the light shining on her lovely face peeping out underneath it, with a bundle of sticks in her hand, with the gorse all around her …

Illustrated London News, 2 Apr 1887, p26: Miss Annie L. Robinson [is represented by] a renamed work, “Danaë” (336) – a country-girl, with sticks in her apron, finding doubtful shelter under that shrub which is said never to be out of blossom.

Danæ was a character in Greek mythology kept locked up by her father because of a prophecy that he’d one day be killed by her son. Zeus took a liking to Danæ and fertilised her with a shower of rain, causing her to give birth to the hero Perseus. Years later, the king was accidentally hit on the head by a discus thrown by Perseus, killing him instantly and fulfilling the prophecy. One can imagine how the tale might appeal to Annie, with the symbolism of female confinement and need to overthrow the old, patriarchal order.

Image: Ashmolean.

Danaë watching the tower in which she is going to be imprisoned being built, by Edward Burne-Jones (c. 1870), one of the Royal Academy members who lobbied for Annie to be admitted.

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Sincere thanks to the owner of the work for contacting the site and allowing me to share images of this wonderful piece.

Page last updated 16 Oct 2025.