ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

‘The Throne of Grace’ by Rudolf Blind

Continuing the family saga of Rudolf Blind, which began with a slight connection between the painter and Robert Buchanan and a seemingly hopeless quest to find Blind’s painting ‘The World’s Desire’, and which now seems to have turned up another of his major works, ‘The Throne of Grace’. I recently (May, 2026) received an email (no names, no pack drill) which concerned a painting. This painting was part of a collection in a house on the island of St, John in the Virgin Islands (my correspondent said ‘British’ Virgin islands, but google says it’s in the U.S. Virgin islands) which was bought by a friend about ten years ago.

“In the dining room was this beautiful painting about 9 feet tall that was of Jesus and a woman kneeling down at his feet. The woman that owned the house previously had all the priests from the island come once a year for dinner in her dining room. A month ago our friends sold the house and they were going to leave the painting with the house and my husband said he would ship it back to the States if the new owner didn’t want it. So, two days ago the  painting arrived and I started doing research on the artist and came  across your article and realized the painting we have is ‘The Throne of Grace’.”

As you will see from the photo below, the painting is in need of restoration.

Although ‘The Throne of Grace’ was mentioned on the previous page, it was only once, in Rudolf Blind’s obituary in The Times. However, once I put the name of the painting into google several sites came up, mostly selling prints of the painting.

The inscription on the base of the throne is “Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis omnes qui onerati estis” from Matthew, 11.28, which translates as “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened” and continues; and I will give you rest. There are plenty of sites selling the print, including Artvee, Artem Legrand, and Fine Art America. It was also once available as a magic lantern slide..

As for the history of the painting, there’s not much online. The following appears in The Magazine of Art (Vol 23, 1899, p.429) in the section headed, ‘The Chronicle of Art—July’

And there are adverts for the same exhibition at the Doré Gallery in several newspapers from 26th April to August, 1899. According to an item in The Monitor and New Era of 23rd September, 1904:

‘A very beautiful allegorical painting by Mr. Rudolf Blind, which under the title of “The Throne of Grace,€�” was exhibited at the Dore Gallery recently, has been placed by the artist in the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Wandsworth.’

Whether the painting was a gift or on permanent loan, or just exhibited for a while, I don’t know, but the next mention I found was in Prices of Victorian paintings, drawings, and watercolours : from the records of Sotheby's Belgravia (London : Carter Nash Cameron, 1976) p.35:

There’s a lot of guesswork in this. I presume that’s the painting and not just a print - based on the size - and again I’m assuming that’s the measurement in inches, so it would be 7 foot 4 inches high by 4 foot wide. I’m again assuming that the measurement given by my correspondent who owns the painting  of ‘9 foot tall’ is including the fairly large frame. Even so, 20 quid seems a bit cheap, especially since a much smaller painting went for four times as much. But, then again, we’re dealing with ‘art’ here, not just ‘summat t’ ‘ang on yer wo’ (to slip into the vernacular). And maybe overtly religious subjects were not de rigueur in the 1970s.

The only item I found relating to the Caribbean was this from the Nassau Times from 6th May, 1892, about the court case involving Blind’s ‘World’s Desire’ - the thing which started all this off.

So there the trail gives out and we’re left with the question of how did ‘The Throne of Grace’ end up in the Virgin Islands? To misquote Captain Ahab (or Khan Noonien Singh) “It tasks me”. I did wonder about writing to the ‘Fake or Fortune’ TV programme, but since I don’t believe it’s a fake and, given Blind’s reputation, is not worth a fortune, I don’t think they’d be interested.

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Searching around for ‘The Throne of Grace’ and Rudolf Blind, inevitably threw up some additional information, unconnected to the former, which I thought I might as well add here. The first item was actually connected to Robert Buchanan, so that makes a change. This is a programme for a ‘Dramatic Recital’ at the Steinway Hall, London, by Mrs. Rudolf Blind and Mr. Robert O’Meara, on 10th June, 1886. One of the pieces to be recited by Rudolf Blind’s wife, is Robert Buchanan’s ‘Nell’. This was originally published in London Poems (1866) and became a popular piece for recitation, being a monologue by a woman whose common law husband is due to be hanged and her trek through the city to witness the event. Buchanan himself had included it in the programme of the first Poetry Reading he gave in London in January, 1869.

I also came across a genealogy site concerning the family of William Henry Wood of Vancouver, Canada. If you scoot down the page you come to ‘Emily Annie Wood’ and this information:

“Emily Annie Wood was born in Scarborough, England on May 14, 1874.

On December 21, 1901, in Vancouver, She  married Wolfstan Rudolf Blind, who was a bookkeeper. He was born in London, England in January 1874. His parents were Rudolph Blind  (1850-1916) and Anne ‘Annie’€� Sarah Parsone (1850-1926).”

I think that should be ‘Parsons’. Anyway, the entry goes on to reveal more about Wolfstan’s career, and could explain why all of the descendants of Rudolf Blind seem to be resident in North America.

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And finally, I came across this on the ‘Orlando Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present’ site. A brief entry for Rudolf Blind, appended to the section about his half-sister, Mathilde:

“MB also had a half-brother from her mother's second marriage, Rudolph Blind, who was an artist. Vernon Lee pronounced him an awful little snob.”

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