Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban, from The Tempest
c. 1786
Medium
Graphite on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
39 × 57.4 cm (15 3/8 × 22 5/8 in.)
Classification
graphite
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
116239
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
What appears to be a single multi-figured composition on this sheet are, in fact, two variant studies (divided by a vertical line right of center) for the shipwreck scene from Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest. On the left side of the sheet, Miranda, daughter of the magician Prospero, implores her father to stop the storm he has unleashed. A few vertical lines and a pair of heads in alternate positions suggest the figure of Prospero. To Miranda’s immediate right crouches the monster Caliban. On ...
About the Artist
George Romney · 1734–1802
George Romney (1734–1802) was a British portrait painter who, alongside Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, formed the triumvirate of great English portraitists in the second half of the eighteenth century. Born in Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, he received his early training from the itinerant portrait painter Christopher Steele before moving to London in 1762. Romney quickly establishe...