- Museum number
- 2017,7032.1
- Description
-
Illustration to Spenser's "Faerie Queene", Book I, Canto III, 5-9 - Una and the Lion; a woman sits on the ground in a forest, behind her to the left a frightened horse pulls back on its haunches, to the right a lion prowls through the trees
Graphite with watercolour and pen and grey ink
- Production date
- 1810 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 115 millimetres
-
Width: 89 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Thomas Stothard was a prolific illustrator; his obituary records him having produced upwards of five thousand designs of which three thousand were engraved (The Gentleman’s Magazine, September 1834, p. 322). The present drawing is an illustration to Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene", Book I, Canto III, verses 5-9. An engraving from this design was produced by John Romney and used as the frontispiece to volume one of John Sharpe’s six volume edition of The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser in 1810 (see 2006,U.1376).
The drawing shows the first meeting of Una and the lion. Una, daughter of a king and an allegorical representation of the One True Religion, has been separated from her true love the Redcross Knight (representative of St George and England). Whilst trying to find him and free her parents from a dragon she rests in a wood, whereupon a ferocious lion appears. Instead of eating her, the lion is so entranced by Una’s innocence and loveliness that he becomes her protector and accompanies her on her quest. In Spenser’s words:
It fortuned, out of the thickest Wood
A ramping Lion rushed suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage Blood.
Soon as the Royal Virgin he did spy,
With gaping Mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devour'd her tender Corse:
But to the Prey when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody Rage assuaged with Remorse,
And with the sight amaz'd, forgat his furious force.
Stothard utilises the pallor of the paper to create the illusion of light emanating from Una, whose ‘angel's face,/ As the great eye of Heaven shinèd bright,/ And made a sunshine in the shady place.’; a simple effect that transferred well to the printed medium.
The motif of Una and the Lion, symbolic of the triumph of innocence and holiness over brutality, was an enduring one in British Art, appearing in paintings, drawings, prints and on coins throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries. Benjamin West painted a version in 1771, using Mary Hall as a model for Una (Wadsworth Atheneum, 1941.591). Similarly, George Stubbs depicted his patroness Isabella Saltonstall in the role of Una in a painting of 1782 (Fitzwilliam Museum, PD.45-1971).
This comment was written by Olivia Ghosh, Anne Christopherson Fellow, P&D, 2017.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: The Faerie Queene
- Acquisition date
- 2017
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2017,7032.1