Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse

Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse
Artist	Joshua Reynolds
Year	1783–1784
Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	239.4 cm× 147.64 cm(94.25 in× 58.125 in) [1]
Location	Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California

Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, or Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, is a 1783–1784 painting by English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. The 1784 version is in the Huntington Library art museum, ^[1] while a 1789 reproduction from Reynolds's studio is in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. ^[2]

Composition

The painting depicts the actress Sarah Siddons as Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. Siddons wears a diadem and is dressed in an 18th-century costume adorned with pearls. She is seated on a large throne while behind her, figures personifying Pity and Terror stand in the shadows. ^[3]

It provided the inspiration for Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud's 1897 marble Statue of Sarah Siddons in Paddington Green.

References

1. Huntington Library.
2. Dulwich Picture Gallery.
3. McPherson 2000, p. 411.

Sources

• Bennett, Shelley; Leonard, Mark; Khandekar, Narayan (1999). ""A Sublime and Masterly Performance": The Making of Sir Joshua Reynolds's Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse". In Asleson, Robyn (ed.). A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and her Portraitists. J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN   978-0-8923-6557-9.
• McPherson, Heather (2000). "Picturing Tragedy: Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse Revisited". Eighteenth-Century Studies . 33 (3). Johns Hopkins University Press: 401–430. doi:10.1353/ecs.2000.0029. JSTOR   30053950.
• "Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse". Dulwich Picture Gallery . Retrieved 30 June 2021.
• "Sarah (Kemble) Siddons as the Tragic Muse". Huntington Library . Retrieved 30 June 2021.

External links

• Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse on Google Arts & Culture