Viola Surviving the Shipwreck off the Coast of Illyria, from “Twelfth Night”

Prints and Drawings

c. 1776

George Romney
English, 1734-1802

George Romney’s reputation as a portraitist rivaled that of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the leading figures of 18th-century British painting. Romney’s true ambition to be a history painter, however, was not fully realized until the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery was opened in 1786. This drawing is one of hundreds by Romney, most of which are in pen and wash, illustrating Shakespeare, Milton, and Greco-Roman mythology. The artist’s sweeping gestures with pen and wash emphasize the struggle and loss brought on by the shipwreck in the opening act of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: George Romney
Title: Viola Surviving the Shipwreck off the Coast of Illyria, from “Twelfth Night”
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1771–1781
Medium: Black chalk and charcoal on ivory laid paper, edge mounted on ivory laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed verso, left of center, in pen and brown ink: "No. 27"; upper right, in graphite: "Early study for a Shipwreck"
Dimensions: Primary support: 29.7 × 48.9 cm (11 3/4 × 19 5/16 in.); Secondary support: 36 × 55.4 cm (14 3/16 × 21 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.1015
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/186402/manifest.json

Yvonne Romney Dixon, Designs from Fancy: George Romney’s Shakespearean Drawings (Seattle, 1988), p. 88, pl. 52, as The Flood.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh (ed.), Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2006), p. 72, cat. 43 (ill.).

London, Agnew’s, “Twenty Five Drawings by George Romney 1734–1802,” June 11–28, 2002, cat. 14.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” June 3–July 30, 2006, p. 72, cat. 43 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “The Thrill of the Chase: Drawings for the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” Mar. 15-June 15, 2014, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing,” Nov. 16, 2017-Apr. 1, 2018, no cat.

Alfred A. de Pass (1861–1953), London and Falmouth [stamps (Lugt 108a) recto, lower right, in black (twice)]; presented to the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro, 1928; sold, Christie’s, Feb. 22, 1966, lot 33 (one of five in lot), to Agnew’s, London. Private collection, from 1966. Sold by Agnew’s, London, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, MA, Nov. 15, 2002 [invoice]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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Viola Surviving the Shipwreck off the Coast of Illyria, from “Twelfth Night”

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.