Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Last updated

Edwin Landseer, Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom, 1851, National Gallery of Victoria. Edwin Landseer - Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom - Google Art Project.jpg
Edwin Landseer, Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom, 1851, National Gallery of Victoria.

Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom is an 1851 oil-on-canvas painting by British artist Edwin Landseer. Landseer was mainly known for his paintings of animals: this is his only painting of a fairy scene. The painting depicts a scene from the third act of William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream . It has been in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia since 1932.

The painting shows Titania, Queen of the Fairies, after she has been given a love potion, embracing the temporary object of her love, the mechanical Nick Bottom. Bottom has been also enchanted and has the head of an ass. They are observed by other fairy folk, and the scene is decorated with flowers and rabbits.

The work measures 82.0 × 133.0 centimetres (32.3 × 52.4 in). It was one of several paintings of scenes from works by Shakespeare commissioned by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1847 to decorate the dining room of his house in London. Landseer was paid £450. Brunel left the choice of subject to the artists, and Landseer may have chosen this scene so he could include several animals. Other works were commissioned from Charles West Cope, Augustus Egg, Frederick Richard Lee, Charles Robert Leslie, and Clarkson Frederick Stanfield.

The painting was first exhibited the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1851, and was immediately a popular success. It was praised by Queen Victoria in her diary, and by Lewis Carroll, who admired the white rabbit; the work may have influenced the white rabbit in his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland .

After Brunel's death in 1859, the painting was sold at auction in April 1860 and acquired by Lord Robert Pelham-Clinton for £2,800. After the death of Pelham-Clinton, it was acquired by Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow, and later sold to Sir William Quilter, 1st Baronet. It was then sold to Henry Lowenfeld at Christie's in 1909 for £2,400 (the auction also included Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat ). After Lowenfeld's death in 1931, his widow sold the painting to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (funded from the Felton Bequest) where it remains today.

Related Research Articles

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> Play by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular and widely performed plays.

Puck (<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i>) Character in A Midsummer Nights Dream

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oberon</span> King of the fairies in medieval, Renaissance literature

Oberon is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mechanical (character)</span> Set of six characters in A Midsummer Nights Dream

The mechanicals are six characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream who perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe. They are a group of amateur and mostly incompetent actors from around Athens, looking to make names for themselves by having their production chosen among several acts as the courtly entertainment for the royal wedding party of Theseus and Hippolyta. The servant-spirit Puck describes them as "rude mechanicals" in Act III, Scene 2 of the play, in reference to their occupations as skilled manual laborers.

Fairy painting is a genre of painting and illustration featuring fairies and fairy tale settings, often with extreme attention to detail. The genre is most closely associated with Victorian painting in the United Kingdom but has experienced a contemporary revival. Moreover, fairy painting was also seen as escapism for Victorians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Bottom</span> Character in A Midsummer Nights Dream

Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play. A weaver by trade, he is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck. Bottom and Puck are the only two characters who converse with and progress the three central stories in the whole play. Puck is first introduced in the fairies' story and creates the drama of the lovers' story by messing up who loves whom, and places the donkey head on Bottom's in his story. Similarly, Bottom is performing in a play in his story intending it to be presented in the lovers' story, as well as interacting with Titania in the fairies' story.

Snug (<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i>) Character in A Midsummer Nights Dream

Snug is a minor character from William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is a joiner who comes from Athens who is hired by Peter Quince to play the part of the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe. When he is first assigned the part, he is afraid it may take him a while to finally remember his lines. Bottom offers to play the part of the lion, but he is rejected by Quince, who worries that his loud and ferocious roar in the play will frighten the ladies of power in the audience and get Quince and all his actors hanged. In the end, the lion's part is revised to explain that he is in fact not a lion and means the audience no harm.

Titania (<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i>) Character in A Midsummer Nights Dream

Titania is a character in William Shakespeare's 1595–1596 play A Midsummer Night's Dream.

<i>The Fairy-Queen</i> Semi-opera by Henry Purcell

The Fairy-Queen is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century.

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (1968 film) 1968 film by Peter Hall

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1968 British film of William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Hall.

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (1999 film) 1999 film by Michael Hoffman

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1999 fantasy romantic comedy film written, produced, and directed by Michael Hoffman, based on the 1600 play of the same name by William Shakespeare. The ensemble cast features Kevin Kline as Bottom, Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Everett as Titania and Oberon, Stanley Tucci as Puck, and Calista Flockhart, Anna Friel, Christian Bale, and Dominic West as the four lovers.

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (1935 film) 1935 film by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1935 American romantic comedy fantasy film of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, and starring James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Muir, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Victor Jory and Ian Hunter. Produced by Henry Blanke and Hal B. Wallis for Warner Brothers, and adapted by Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr. from Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the previous year, the film is about the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the story is set. The play, which is categorized as a comedy, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. Felix Mendelssohn's music was extensively used, as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Ballets Russes veteran Bronislava Nijinska.

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (1909 film) 1909 American film directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1909 American film directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton, and starring Walter Ackerman and Charles Chapman. It was the first film adaptation of the eponymous play by William Shakespeare. The movie was made during summer 1909, but not released until December 25.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1959 Czechoslovak animated puppet film directed by Jiří Trnka, his last feature length film before his death 10 years later in 1969. It is based on the Shakespeare play of the same name.

RSC production of <i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (1970) Shakespeare play production

The 1970 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was directed by Peter Brook, and is often known simply as Peter Brook'sDream. It opened in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and then moved to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End in 1971. It was taken on a world tour in 1972–1973. Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC is often described as one of the 20th century's most influential productions of Shakespeare, as it rejected many traditional ideas about the staging of classic drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Simmons (painter)</span> English painter

John Simmons (1823–1876) was a British miniature painter and illustrator, known primarily for his watercolours of ethereal fairyland scenes, often illustrating Shakespearian or other literary works. He was one of several popular Victorian artists who together created "a genre of forest idyll" in their fairy paintings. They are often grouped with the Pre-Raphaelites. Simmons lived in Bristol, and also painted portraits. He was elected to membership of the Bristol Academy of the Fine Arts in 1849. He died in November 1876 and is buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery.

<i>The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania</i> 1849 painting by Sir Joseph Noel Paton

The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania is an oil on canvas painting by the Scottish artist Sir Joseph Noel Paton. Painted in 1849, it depicts the scene from William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, when the fairy queen Titania and fairy king Oberon quarrel; Oberon was considered the King of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. When exhibited in Edinburgh during 1850, it was declared as the "painting of the season". It was acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland in 1897, having initially been bought by the Royal Association for Promoting the Fine Arts in Scotland during 1850. An earlier version of this painting was Paton's diploma picture, which was submitted to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1846; they paid £700 for it.

<i>Hermia and Lysander</i> (painting) 1870 painting by John Simmons

Hermia and Lysander is a watercolor painting created in 1870 by British illustrator and miniature portrait painter John Simmons. Based on a scene from Act II, scene II of William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, it measures 89 by 74 centimetres.

<i>A Midsummer Nights Dream</i> (2016 film) 2016 British television film

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 2016 British television film based on the William Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was adapted by Russell T Davies, directed by David Kerr and produced by Nikki Wilson. It stars Maxine Peake as Titania, Matt Lucas as Bottom, John Hannah as Theseus and Nonso Anozie as Oberon. The film was first broadcast on 30 May 2016 on BBC One.

<i>Titania and Bottom</i> Painting by Henry Fuseli

Titania and Bottom is an oil painting by the Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli. It dates to around 1790 and is in Tate Britain, in London. It was commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery and depicts a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

References