Master Page, Anne Page, and Slender
- John Downman, Welsh, 1750-1824
John Downman, Master Page, Anne Page, and Slender, About 1800. Oil paint on canvas; 32 1/2 × 39 3/4 in. (82.6 × 101 cm). Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2019.3
William Shakespeare had been dead nearly 200 years when publisher John Boydell undertook a campaign to revive interest in the bard. He commissioned the greatest artists of the day to paint scenes from his plays, then sold prints of the pictures in his London gallery. One result of this venture was a vogue for amateur productions of Shakespeare’s plays, as here, in this scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor.
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