Slender, with the Assistance of Shallow, Courting Anne Page, from "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act III, Scene iv
Date:
1825
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
26 5/8 x 31 1/2 inches (67.6 x 80 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.13.2
Gallery Label:
Charles Robert Leslie was born in London to American parents and spent most of his formative years in Philadelphia. He moved back to London in 1811 to pursue a career as a painter, training with the aging Benjamin West. Leslie soon made a reputation for his historical and genre pictures, his theatrical subjects becoming especially popular. This example represents a scene from Shakespeare’s comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, wherein Robert Shallow, a country justice, nudges his reluctant kinsman, Slender, toward marriage with Anne Page because she stands to inherit her father’s immense fortune. Although Shallow proclaims his cousin’s affection, Slender’s expression belies these assertions. Anne, who loves another, conveys her corresponding lack of enthusiasm by focusing on the flower in her hand rather than her purported suitor.