King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
by 1906 or 1907
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
Accession Number
1929.6.99
Tags
About this artwork
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid may have been commissioned by the art collector John Gellatly, who was an enthusiastic supporter of contemporary American art around the turn of the twentieth century. Albert Pinkham Ryder worked on this painting for more than five years, and x-rays of the canvas show that it was painted over two other images. Ryder was inspired by the story of King Cophetua from an Elizabethan ballad that tells of love overcoming all odds. In the tale, a king of Africa falls in...
About the Artist
Albert Pinkham Ryder · 1847–1917
Largely self-taught, Albert Pinkham Ryder is widely considered one of America's greatest visionary painters. His intense use of color and mysterious themes are distinctly Romantic. Ryder moved with his family from New Bedford, Massachusetts to New York in 187, where he studied briefly at the New York National Academy of Design. He studied the engravings of Camille Corot and other Barbizon painters...