Osbert Lancaster, The Barge: Scene from an Oxford Love Story, 1952

ABOUT THE ARTIST

(This caption is printed on the back of the greeting card)

OSBERT LANCASTER (1908 - 1986)

In 1952 The Randolph Hotel in Oxford commissioned Osbert Lancaster to produce a series of panels illustrating Max Beerbohm's prose fantasy Zuleika Dobson. Beerbohm's tale, which he himself called 'An Oxford Love Story', relates how the young and beautiful Zuleika pays a visit to her grandfather, the Warden of Judas, during eights week. Before long half of Oxford has fallen under her spell. Foremost among her suitors is the young Duke of Dorset, a member of her grandfather's college. Here the two are seen taking tea on the roof of the Judas barge. Beneath them the raft, which makes a floating platform from which to view the race, is thronged with Old Judasians (most of them clergymen) who watch as the Judas Eight prepares to row off towards the starting-point. The oarsmen, however, have all but forgotten their duty. 'Their hearts, already strained by rowing, had been transfixed this afternoon by Eros's darts. All of them had seen Zuleika as she came down to the river; and now they sat gaping up at her, fumbling with their oars.'