The Duel Interrupted

Bourne’s engraving after a painting by Stone shows two men with swords facing one another outside a half-timbered building. They are prevented from dueling by a young woman in white who restrains the younger combatant. Stone’s related painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1868 (639), and Bourne exhibited an impression of the engraving in 1870 (873). The print was published in The Art Journal, London, in January 1871 and this New York reissue likely appeared soon after. Marcus Stone had received early instruction from artist-father Frank Stone, then drew illustrationfor periodicals and books, including Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend in 1861 and 1863. He achieved his greatest success with romantic and historical genre paintings, and was elected a Royal Academician in 1886. No specific literary source has been connected to this image, but primed by historical novels and plays, viewers would have imagined a likely context.