Mariana in the Moated Grange
- Object:
- Place of origin:
England, Great Britain (made)
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
Millais, born 1829 - died 1896 (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E, case I, shelf 127, box E
- Download image
This is a study for Millais' oil painting Mariana. He exhibited the finished work at the Royal Academy in 1851, and it is now in the collection of Tate Britain (TO7553). The painting - and this sketch - illustrate some lines from Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Mariana’ (1830):
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh note', she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'
Tennyson's poem was itself inspired by William Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure. In this drama, Mariana is rejected by her fiancé, Angelo. She retires to a lonely moated grange, where she waits longingly to be reunited with him. Millais' picture shows her standing up from the embroidery that she has been working on to pass the time, and stretching her aching back. The gesture emphasises how long and tiring her lonely vigil has been.
Tennyson was a favourite poet of the Pre-Raphaelite artists. He provided inspiration for a number of their pictures.
Physical description
This is a finished study for the oil painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851. It illustrates a passage by one of the Pre-Raphaelites' favourite contemporary poets, Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
She only said, 'My life is dreary -
He cometh not' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary -
I would that I were dead''
The poem tells of a rejected woman who has no hope of seeing her lover again, a subject suggested to Tennyson by a character called Mariana in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure who, cast off by Angelo, lives dejected in 'the moated grange', the water around the house symbolising her separation from society. Tennyson's poem is a melancholic lament, and this kind of highly-charged despair was admired and emulated by Millais, as here, and his associates. Self-imprisoned in a gloomy Gothic room, Mariana stretches wearily as she remembers her beloved.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (made)
Date
1850 (drawn)
Artist/maker
Millais, born 1829 - died 1896 (maker)
Materials and Techniques
Pen and ink on paper
Dimensions
Height: 35 cm with frame, Width: 20 cm with frame, Height: 21.5 cm, Width: 12.9 cm
Descriptive line
Mariana in the Moated Grange, Pen and ink on paper, Sir John Everett Millais, 1850, England
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Fagence Cooper, Suzanne, Pre Raphaelite Art in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, V&A Publications, 2003. 176p., ill. ISBN I 85177 393 2
Jason Rosenfeld and Alison Smith Millais London: Tate Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-185437-667-1.
Exhibition catalogue
Vikutoria & Arub?to Bijutsukan-z? : eikoku romanshugi kaigaten = The Romantic tradition in British painting, 1800-1950 : masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum / selected by Mark Evans [Japan : Brain Trust], 2002. 185 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 30 cm.
Colin Cruise Pre-Raphaelite Drawing London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-7093-0264-3
Exhibition History
The Poetry of Drawing: Pre Raphaelite Studies, Designs and Watercolours (The Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney) 17/06/2011-04/09/2011)
The Poetry of Drawing: Pre Raphaelite Studies, Designs and Watercolours (Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 29/01/2011-15/05/2011)
Millais (Van Gogh Museum 15/02/2008-18/05/2008)
Millais (Tate 26/09/2007-13/01/2008)
Off the Page (Catmose 12/05/2006-18/06/2006)
Off the Page (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/01/2001-31/05/2006)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Kobe, Japan 28/01/2003-06/04/2003)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Koriyama City Museum of Art 22/11/2002-27/12/2002)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Matsuzakaya Museum, Nagoya, Japan 19/10/2002-11/11/2002)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan 24/08/2002-06/10/2002)
Materials
Paper; Ink
Techniques
Drawing
Subjects depicted
Time; Boredom; Mariana
Categories
Illustration; Drawings
Collection code
PDP
