Phoebe Anna Traquair

During 1885 and 1886, Traquair created a series of murals for the Mortuary Chapel of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh. The mural is of Three Maidens (Divine Powers) which is bordered by images within lunettes of writers, artists and critics, such as Edward Burne-Jones, William Bell Scott, Noel Paton and John Ruskin, who was a considerable influence on Traquair. This was her first work as a professional artist.[7] The mortuary was a small windowless room, formerly a coalhouse, where bodies could be left "reverently and lovingly" prior to burial.[8] The work was completed in 1886 and before the building was further developed in 1894, the murals were transferred to a new site and Traquair restored and installed them, albeit in a simpler composition, between 1896 and 1898.[2][9]

Salvation of Mankind (detail), 1886 to 1893

Her murals of the song school of St Mary's Cathedral (1888–92) won Traquair national recognition.[4][10] Within a tunnel-vaulted interior, the east wall depicts the cathedral clergy and choir. The south wall depicts Traquair's admired contemporaries such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and George Frederic Watts. On the north wall birds and choristers sing together, and the west wall shows the four beasts singing the Sanctus.[11] She also made a book containing reproductions of the medallions on the borders of the wall accompanied with handwritten text.[12] The Song School is still used daily for practice by the Choristers.

Catholic Apostolic Church murals, Edinburgh (east end)

Catholic Apostolic Church murals, Edinburgh (west end)

Traquair's best-known work is in the vast former Catholic Apostolic Church (1893–1901) on Mansfield Place (now called the Mansfield Traquair Centre) at the foot of Broughton Street, which has been called "Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel",[3] and "a jewelled crown".[10] It was this work which "helped to confirm her international recognition."[13]

Detail from 'The Victory', the last of four embroideries in the series 'The Progress of a Soul'

Illuminated image in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese – Sonnet 30

A work by Traquair is in the Thistle Chapel of St Giles Cathedral where she designed the earliest enamel armorial panels over the knights' seats.[14] Another of her works is a key Arts and Crafts illuminated manuscript of Sonnets from the Portuguese by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which is held by the National Library of Scotland.[15] Traquair was a prolific artist who, as well as her murals and embroidery, produced hundreds of pieces of jewellery. She was invited to exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, and her four silk-embroidered panels The Progress of the Soul were displayed in St. Louis in 1904. That year she returned to mural painting with a work for the chancel of St Peter's Church, Clayworth in Nottinghamshire. Her final mural was completed for the Manners family chapel at Thorney Hill in the New Forest between 1920 and 1922.[2] Many other works by Traquair, including: enamels; illuminated manuscripts of Rossetti's sonnet sequence "Willowwood;" a piano with a case made by Traquair's friend and artistic collaborator Robert Lorimer and painted with scenes from "Willowwood," the Biblical Song of Songs, and the story of Psyche and Pan; and a triptych of embroideries based on the story of the Redcrosse Knight from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, are on display at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh.

At Kellie Castle in Fife in 1897, Traquair completed the Painted Panel above the fireplace in the castle's Drawing Room. The painting is based on Botticelli's "primavera" and was completed when John Henry Lorimer occupied the Castle. The painting was covered over in the late 1940s but was restored in 1996 by the National Trust for Scotland.