The Sonnet thumbnail 1
The Sonnet thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Paintings, Room 82, The Edwin and Susan Davies Galleries

The Sonnet

Oil Painting
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

Categories
Object type
TitleThe 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
  • Estimate height: 35.3cm
  • Estimate width: 30.2cm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990
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
  • Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 206
  • 100 Great Paintings in The Victoria & Albert Museum. London: V&A, 1985, p.132
  • Evans, Mark et al. Vikutoria & Arubāto Bijutsukan-zō : eikoku romanshugi kaigaten = The Romantic tradition in British painting, 1800-1950 : masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Japan : Brain Trust, 2002
Collection
Accession number
FA.146[O]

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
Record URL
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