King Lear Casting Out His Daughter Cordelia (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1)

Shearjashub Spooner|Richard Earlom|Henry Fuseli|John & Josiah Boydell|William Shakespeare

first published 1792; reissued 1852 · Stipple engraving; fourth state of four · Drawings and Prints

Fuseli's image evokes a scene at the start of King Lear where the elderly king divests himself of power and orders his daughters-Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia-to declare their devotion in return for a portion of the kingdom. The latter's refusal to flatter a father she truly loves results in her banishment. Earlom's choice of stipple allows the varying expressions of numerous participants to be distinguished. The work was conceived for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, launched in 1786 as a publishing-cum-exhibition scheme that included a new illustrated edition of the plays, sets of large and small engravings, and a gallery on London's Pall Mall. The latter opened in 1789 with thirty-four paintings and contained about one hundred and seventy works the time Boydell went bankrupt and auctioned the contents in 1805–his print sales plummeted when Napoleon blocaded European ports. This impression belongs to an American reissue of 1852 spearheaded by Shearjashub Spooner, a New York dental surgeon and art scholar who acquired Boydell's heavily worn plates and had them reworked. Printed on thick cream colored paper, the New York edition added small numbers in the lower left margin, this being number 49.

Artist

Shearjashub Spooner|Richard Earlom|Henry Fuseli|John & Josiah Boydell|William Shakespeare

Date

first published 1792; reissued 1852

Medium

Stipple engraving; fourth state of four

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gertrude and Thomas Jefferson Mumford Collection, Gift of Dorothy Quick Mayer, 1942