King Lear and Cordelia (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 7)

Benjamin Beale Evans|William Shakespeare|Francesco Bartolozzi|Benjamin West

ca. 1783 · Stipple engraving, printed in brown ink · Drawings and Prints

West painted several versions of this subject, showing Lear regaining consciousness in the French camp following his ordeal on the heath. This related stipple engraving is closest to a painting at the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, and shows Kent, or a doctor, supporting the traumatized king. When Cordelia asks if her father knows her, Lear replies: "You are a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that my own tears Do scald like molten lead."

Artist

Benjamin Beale Evans|William Shakespeare|Francesco Bartolozzi|Benjamin West

Date

ca. 1783

Medium

Stipple engraving, printed in brown ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. Olga Sichel and Max Philippson, 1962