The Lady in Milton's Comus

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The Lady in Milton's Comus
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) - The Lady in Milton's 'Comus' - WAG 2500 - Walker Art Gallery.jpg
Artist Joseph Wright of Derby
Year1785
Type Oil on canvas, landscape painting
Dimensions101 cm× 127 cm(40 in× 50 in)
Location Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The Lady in Milton's Comus is a 1785 history painting by the British artist Joseph Wright of Derby. [1] It is inspired by a passage from John Milton's Comus . A young woman, lost in a forest and distressed by strange noise, recovers her courage when the moon suddenly breaks through the clouds. [2]

It was one of twenty five paintings that Wright displayed in a personal exhibition in Covent Garden in April 1785 rather than at the Summer Exhibition of 1785 held by the Royal Academy who he was in dispute with. [3] The painting in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, having been acquired in 1902. [4]

It was the companion piece of The Indian Widow , produced the same year and now in the Derby Art Gallery. [5]

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