The Fates Gathering in the Stars,

after 1884

This dark and sinuous work is Vedder’s interpretation of three quatrains from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a compilation of verse by the twelfth-century Persian polymath loosely translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. The poems proved enormously popular, and in 1884 Vedder produced an illustrated version based on his drawings. The book was acclaimed as a masterwork of American art, and the artist made several paintings after individual images from it, including this one. Curiously, neither the Fates, figures of Greek mythology who determine human destiny, nor the stars are referred to in Khayyám’s text. Rather, as Vedder described it, he “carried the idea of the poet a step farther and represented the game as being played with the universe instead of merely with man.” Vedder thus took liberties with Khayyám’s verse that were similar to those FitzGerald took in translating it.