ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

subjects. As early as 1818 he wrote to Raymond Soulier calling himself ‘a young
college boy, admirer of Shakespeare.’ 25
Delacroix painted his first picture of a Shakespearian subject in 1825. It was
Desdemona and Emilia from the play Othello. 26 After this he returned to Othello
many times as well as painting numerous other pictures based on Romeo and Juliet,
Anthony and Cleopatra, Hamlet and Macbeth. 27 Most importantly, in connection
with Brown, in 1834-1835 and 1843 Delacroix produced thirteen plates illustrating
Hamlet (see Fig. 8). These were lithographed in 1843 by F. Villain (active by 1824)
and published privately by Delacroix in an edition of eighty. 28 Many of these later
became paintings, some as early as 1839. 29 Delacroix’s illustrations have minimal
backgrounds and focus on the human drama in the story. Their importance in relation
to Brown is highlighted by the fact that they were published in 1843 when Brown was
living in Paris and it seems highly likely that this set of lithographs gave Brown the
25 Letter dated 10 December 1818 quoted in Philippe Verdier, ‘Delacroix and Shakespeare,’ Yale
French Studies, no. 33, Shakespeare in France, 1964, p. 37.
26 Desdemona and Emilia (c. 1825, oil on paper, lost). Desdemona remained the most popular
character from Othello in France whereas in England it was Othello himself who was the subject of
paintings exhibited at the RA. In 1838 Mlle Lafon exhibited Mort de Desdémona at the Salon (no.
1030, Les Catalogues des Salons, vol. 3, p. 238) and in 1839 another woman, Mlle Sophie Hubert
chose Desdemona in act 4, sc. 3 as the subject for her picture (no 1041, ibid., p. 298). At the RA in
1839 D. Cowper exhibited Othello relating his Adventures (no. 394, The Exhibition of the Royal
Academy, 1839, p. 21); in 1842 M. Claxton exhibited Othello (no. 423, ibid., 1842, p. 24) and in 1844
A. Rankley exhibited another picture entitled Othello (no. 310, ibid., 1844, p. 16). There were no
paintings exhibited at the RA between 1838 and 1842 which included Desdemona in the title. The
popularity of the play, particularly in France, may be connected with Rossini's opera Otello which was
first performed in 1821 in Paris.
27 The most notable paintings by Delacroix with subjects taken from Shakespeare are: Cleopatra and
the Peasant (exh. Salon 1839, oil on canvas, William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Centre, North
Carolina University), Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (exh. Salon 1839, oil on canvas, Musée du
Louvre), Romeo and Juliet (exh. Salon 1846, oil on canvas, private collection), Othello and
Desdemona (exh. Salon 1849, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Canada), Lady Macbeth Sleep
Walking (exh. Salon 1850-51, oil on canvas, Beaverbrook Gallery of Art). For information on other
paintings by Delacroix based on these plays see Lee Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A
critical Catalogue, Oxford, 6 vols., 1981-1989.
28 Michael Marqusee, 'Introduction' in William Shakespeare, Hamlet with sixteen Lithographs by
Eugène Delacroix, London, 1976, p. 12. Three further illustrations ‘discarded by the artist, were
published in the second and complete posthumous edition of 1864’ (ibid.).
29 Ibid.
27