Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings they commissioned to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene IV, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned a preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and this final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings commissioned
to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene iv, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned this preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and a final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
Medium: silk embroidery on silk foundation, some painted details Technique: embroidered in satin, stem, speckling, knot, and detached chain stitches on plain weave foundation
Type:
embroidery & stitching
Embroidered picture
Object Name:
Embroidered picture
Place made:
England
Date:
ca. 1800
Credit Line:
Gift of Anonymous Donor from the Fraser/Martin Collection
Accession Number:
1974-100-12
Catalogue Status:
Research in Progress
Description:
Oval embroidered silk picture showing a classically draped female figure with wings on her head, strewing flowers on the tomb of Shakespeare. After "Fame Adoring Shakespeare's Tomb," by Angelica Kaufmann. In a landscape with a grassy foreground, architectural element behind the tomb, trees overhead and sky with white clouds. Embroidered in colored silks except for the sky, wings, head, arms and feet, which are painted.
William Shakespeare [sculpture] / (photographed by De Witt Ward)
Artist:
Aitken, Robert 1878-1949
Photographer:
De Witt Ward
Subject:
Shakespeare, William
Type:
Photograph
Date:
1878
1949
Topic:
Portrait male--Bust
Ethnic
Occupation--Writer--Poet
Image number:
SSC S0000069
Notes:
On photo mount label: R. I. Aitken. Portrait bust of William Shakespeare. Owned by sculptor. Photographer: De Witt Ward. Classification Number: 282/A. Accession: 24659
