Intemperance
Engraver William Chevalier French
After Thomas Stothard British
Printer William Day British
Not on view
This print reproduces an oil painting that Stothard based on a mural decoration he painted between 1799 and 1802 to adorn the Great Staircase at Burghley House, Lincolnshire for the Marquis of Exeter. Antony and Cleopatra represent Intemperance within a broader scheme devoted to the Virtues and Vices. Anthony and Cleopatra sit in a colonnade with flowers scattered by the Three Graces and cherubs hanging a garlands of fruit, and Bacchus at right supported by two fauns.
The painting was acquired by Robert Vernon whose fortune came from supplying horses to the British armies during the Napoleonic wars. He acquired paintings by living British artists and presented 157 to the nation in 1847. Initially these were shown at Marlborough House on Pall Mall before being moved to the South Kensington Museum and then the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in 1876. Finally, some of the group went to the Tate Gallery.
