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The Fiend Conjured by Bolingbroke (from Wiliam Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2)
George Romney (English, 1734–1802)
English
about 1790
Medium/Technique
Pen and black ink and brush with gray wash on paper
Dimensions
Framed: 64.1 × 53.7 × 2.2 cm (25 1/4 × 21 1/8 × 7/8 in.)
Sheet: 40 × 29.5 cm (15 3/4 × 11 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 40 × 29.5 cm (15 3/4 × 11 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Deborah and Joseph Goldyne in memory of Agnes Mongan
Accession Number2018.3727
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Prints and Drawings
ClassificationsDrawings
George Romney, known for his elegant portraits in oil, exhibits a remarkable freedom in his drawings. Draftsmanship was the primary outlet for Romney's interest in extreme emotional states, often related to subjects drawn from literature, history, or the stage. A member of a small club of theater afficionados in London called the Unincreasables, Romney planned a number of works for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, an ambitious project intended to invigorate British painting. This drawing is a study for the "Fiend" in a scene from Henry VI, Part II, in which Margery Jourdain (said to be a witch) and Roger Bolingbroke (believed to be a conjurer) bring forth an evil spirit. Romney renders the figure and his devilish grimace with a deft hand, capturing his shock of flame-like hair and his sweeping robe with a minimum of strokes of grey wash and pen-and-ink. Note the plays between passages (robe and hair and shadow) that lend a witty sensibility to this sheet.
Marks
At lower right, in graphite: 46
At lower right, in black ink: Alfred A. de Pass (L.108a)
At lower right, in black ink: Alfred A. de Pass (L.108a)
ProvenanceAlfred A. de Pass (b. 1861 – d.1953; Lugt 108a), London and Falmouth, England; given by Alfred de Pass to the County Museum and Art Gallery, Truro (Royal Cornwall Museum), England; mid-1960s, probably deaccessioned and sold by the Royal Cornwall Museum. 1967, Spink and Son, London. Mid-1970s, sold by Zeitlin and Ver Brugge, Los Angeles, to Joseph and Deborah Goldyne, Sonoma, CA [see note]; 2018, year-end gift of Joseph and Deborah Goldyne to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 20, 2019)
NOTE: Lent to 18th Century Drawings from California Collections (Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont and the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, 1976), cat. no. 48.
NOTE: Lent to 18th Century Drawings from California Collections (Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont and the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, 1976), cat. no. 48.