Object Image

Minna and Brenda

This is a watercolour version of an oil painting (now untraced) which was exhibited by Johannot at the Paris Salon of 1833. The subject is taken from chapter III of Walter Scott’s novel 'The Pirate' (1821), which is set principally on the rocky isle of Zetland (Shetland) in the seventeenth century. The dark-haired Minna, serious and impressionable, accompanied by her less imaginative sister Brenda, is overwhelmed by the grandeur of the ocean and cliffs. Walter Scott's novels were enormously popular in France in the early nineteenth century and inspired many artists (cf. Cogniet, 'Rebecca and Brian de Bois-Guilbert', P279, and Horace Vernet, 'Allan M'Aulay', P606). Antoine ('Tony') and his broth...
c. 1833
Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour with some gum varnish on paper
42.4 x 33.5cm
P693
Images and text © Wallace Collection, 2017

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