"Owake! what ho! Brabantio! thieves! thieves!": plate 1 from Othello (Act 1, Scene 1)
Medium
Etching, engraving, and roulette on chine collé
Dimensions
plate: 14 5/8 x 10 5/8 in. (37.2 x 27 cm) image: 12 13/16 x 9 5/16 in. (32.5 x 23.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932
Accession Number
32.7.4
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the dramatic tension of Shakespeare's *Othello* with Théodore Chassériau evocative etching, *"Owake! what ho! Brabantio! thieves!!": plate 1 Othello (Act 1, Scene 1)*, created in 1844. This print captures the chaotic midnight shouts of Iago and Roderigo as rouse the Venetian senator Brabantio, accusing Othello of stealing his daughter Desdemona. Chassériau, a French Romantic artist influenced by Ingres and Delacroix, channeled the Bard's tragedy into a series of illustrations, blending literary drama with 19th-century visual storytelling amid a growing European fascination with Shake...
About the Artist
Théodore Chassériau|William Shakespeare · 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...