The Sonnet
Oil Painting
1839 (exhibited)
1839 (exhibited)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This was one of Mulready's most popular works. The young man is courting the girl, and has written a poem for her as a token of his love. A critic observed: 'The youth is fiddling with his shoe-tie, but casting a upwards sly look, to ascertain what effect his lines produce upon the merry maid who reads them...placing her hand before her lips to suppress her laughter'.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | The Sonnet (popular title) |
| Materials and techniques | oil on panel |
| Brief description | Oil painting entitled 'The Sonnet' by William Mulready. Great Britain, 1839. |
| Physical description | This small panel with its jewel like colour, is very thinly painted allowing us to perceive the powerful quality of life drawing in the figures of the shy young poet and the girl who reads his sonnet. The clothes, the trunks of the trees and the rocky foreground have a luminosity achieved by the thinly applied opaque colour over the light initial priming. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Credit line | Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857 |
| Object history | Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857 |
| Production | Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | This was one of Mulready's most popular works. The young man is courting the girl, and has written a poem for her as a token of his love. A critic observed: 'The youth is fiddling with his shoe-tie, but casting a upwards sly look, to ascertain what effect his lines produce upon the merry maid who reads them...placing her hand before her lips to suppress her laughter'. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | FA.146[O] |
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| Record created | December 15, 1999 |
| Record URL |
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