The Rout, or Defeat, of Comus and his Band (John Milton's "Comus, a Masque")
Not on view
This semi-circular image centers on a young man who raises his staff next to a kneeling woman with a doe's head, near dancing figures with human bodies and the heads of animals. The spandrels show an emaciated male at left, and bare-breated women at right, and the image is based on a fresco by Landseer that Prince Albert commissioned in 1843 for an octagonal pavilion in the garden of Buckingham Palace. Known as the Milton Summer House or Milton Villa, the building deteriorated and was demolished in 1928. There is a related oil sketch by Landseer for the design at Tate Britain.
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