The Declaration, from "Illustrated London News"
Engraver William Luson Thomas British
After Frederick Goodall British
Not on view
The dress of these lovers meeting by a wooded pond places them in 17th-century Brittany and the print is based on a painting that Frederick Goodall exhibited at Leeds in 1868. Thirty years before the artist had come to public notice when he showed watercolors at the Royal Academy describing the new Rotherhithe Tunnel under the Thames designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Goodall later became known for middle-eastern subjects whose authentic details relied on studies made in Egypt in 1858 and 1870, and he also painted European historical and genre subjects, including a series set in Brittany. He became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1852, but also sent paintings to exhibitions in the north of England to attract wider patronage. When he painted "The Declaration," the artist was a bachelor (he would married Alice Tarry in 1872), so the subject may have had some personal resonance.
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