Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Robert Vernon
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/charles-landseer-322" aria-label="More by Charles Landseer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Charles Landseer</a>
Clarissa Harlowe in Prison Room Sheriffs Office
Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
actions: postures and motions
adults
book - non-specific
crime and punishment
debtor
desk
despair
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
furnishings
head in hand / hands
imprisonment
interiors
kneeling
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
morality
objects
people
prison
public and municipal
reading, writing, printed matter
Richardson, Samuel, ‘The History of Clarissa Harlowe’
social comment
society
woman
<p>Samuel Richardson's novel 'The History of Clarissa Harlowe' was first published in 1747-8. Clarissa, the heroine, is a woman of great integrity. She is wooed by the rake Robert Lovelace. He wants her to live with him out of wedlock and despite her resistance to the proposal, rapes her. Clarissa's continuing denial of him after this transforms her into a tragic heroine who dominates the last scenes of the book. At one point she is imprisoned for debt. Landseer depicts that moment when she is discovered in gaol by Lovelace's friend John Belford. Landseer's choice of subject and his handling of it recalls William Hogarth's much earlier 'modern moral subjects', which influenced many nineteenth-century genre painters.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
14 June 2008 – 31 August 2008
2008-08-31
14 June 2008 – 31 August 2008
2008-08-31
2008-06-14
Shipley Art Galley (Gateshead, UK)
2008-06-14
Eighteenth Century Blues
Loan-out
Clarissa Harlowe in the Prison Room of the Sheriff’s Office
support: 610 × 508 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999978" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Robert Vernon</a> 1847
<p>Samuel Richardson's novel 'The History of Clarissa  Harlowe' was first published in 1747-8. Clarissa,  the heroine, is a woman of great integrity. She is  wooed by the rake Robert Lovelace. He wants her to  live with him out of wedlock and despite her  resistance to the proposal, rapes her. Clarissa's  continuing denial of him after this transforms her  into a tragic heroine who dominates the last  scenes of the book. At one point she is imprisoned  for debt. Landseer depicts that moment when she is  discovered in gaol by Lovelace's friend John  Belford. Landseer's choice of subject and his  handling of it recalls William Hogarth's much  earlier '<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/modern-moral-subject" title="Glossary definition for 'Modern Moral Subject'"><span>modern moral subjects</span></a>', which influenced  many nineteenth-century <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/genres" title="Glossary definition for 'Genres'"><span>genre</span></a> painters.</p>
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2004-08-18T00:00:00
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actions: postures and motions adults book - non-specific crime and punishment debtor desk despair emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas furnishings head in hand / hands imprisonment interiors kneeling literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) morality objects people prison public and municipal reading, writing, printed matter Richardson, Samuel, ‘The History of Clarissa Harlowe’ social comment society woman