Man and woman in a landscape (Faust and Marguerite)
Richard Parkes Bonington British
Related author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German
Not on view
Rich brown ink is used here to describe a hilly landscape with a gallant figure in late medieval dress reading to a demure young woman. They likely represent Faust and Marguerite from Goethe's dramatic poem "Faust" (1808). The latter tells how a young nobleman becomes fascinated with magic, sells his soul to the devil and seduces and destroys the innocent Marguerite. Dramatic literary subjects of this kind appealed to the British-born Bonington, and to French artists he knew in Paris. His close friend Delacroix once owned this drawing and, in 1828, would create a series of seventeen lithographs inspired by Faust.
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