Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona?, plate twelve fom Othello
Medium
Etching, engraving and roulette on ivory China paper, laid down on white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 27.6 × 22.8 cm (10 7/8 × 9 in.); Plate: 32 × 24.6 cm (12 5/8 × 9 11/16 in.); Sheet: 64 × 49 cm (25 1/4 × 19 5/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
61329
Art Historical Context
In the dimly lit tension of Shakespeare's *Othello*, Act V delivers one of its most haunting lines: "Have you pray'd tonight Desdemona?" This poignant moment inspired Théodore Chassériau etching, plate twelve from his 1844 series illustrating the tragedy. The young French artist, then just 25, captured Othello's looming menace and Desdemona's vulnerability with dramatic intensity, reflecting the Romantic era's fascination with passion, jealousy, and fate. Chassériau, a protégé of Ingres yet influenced by Delacroix's vivid emotion, bridged neoclassical precision with Romantic expressiveness in ...
About the Artist
Théodore Chassériau · 1819–1856
Théodore Chassériau was born on September 20, 1819, in El Limón, Samaná, in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo — present-day Dominican Republic — to a French father and a Creole mother. The family relocated to Paris in 1820, and the young Chassériau's exceptional talent was evident almost immediately. At just eleven years old, in 1830, he was accepted into the prestigious studio of Jean-Auguste-D...