Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ford-madox-brown-65" aria-label="More by Ford Madox Brown" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Ford Madox Brown</a>
Lear and Cordelia
Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund and subscribers 1916
‘Bayeaux Tapestry’
‘King Lear’
actions: expressive
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actions: processes and functions
adults
architecture
arm / arms raised
arts and entertainment
beard
bed
body
Brown, Emma
characters
clothing and personal items
coast
Cordelia
crowd
crown
doctor
Dover - non-specific
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England, South East
England, Southern
fine art and design, named works
fine arts and music
flower
furnishings
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instrument, harp
instrument, lute
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King Lear
kneeling
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medical
military
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orb
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plants and flowers
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<p>This is one of three paintings by Ford Madox Brown illustrating Shakespeare’s play <i>King Lear</i>. This scene shows Lear with his youngest daughter, Cordelia, on the right. Lear’s doctor orders the musicians to play more loudly and awaken him. But Cordelia is anxious that her ailing father should sleep and she speaks the lament inscribed on the painting’s frame. In the play Lear divides his kingdom between his other two daughters and their husbands. But, after a painful period of self-discovery, he realises that Cordelia is his only true loving child.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2007</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 October 2001 – 11 July 2005
2005-07-11
24 October 2001
2001-10-24
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-24
Making British History
Collection based display
1 August 2005 – 30 July 2007
2007-07-30
1 August 2005
2005-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-08-01
The Pre-Raphaelites
Collection based display
22 January 2010 – 25 July 2010
2010-07-25
22 January 2010 – 11 April 2010
2010-04-11
2010-01-22
Deutsche Guggenheim (Berlin, Germany)
30 April 2010 – 25 July 2010
2010-07-25
2010-04-30
Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice, Italy)
http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/
2010-01-22
Utopia Matters
Loan-out
24 September 2011 – 3 June 2012
2012-06-03
24 September 2011 – 29 January 2012
2012-01-29
2011-09-24
Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, UK)
http://www.manchestergalleries.org
25 February 2012 – 3 June 2012
2012-06-03
2012-02-25
Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent, Belgium)
http://www.gent.be/
2011-09-24
Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer
Loan-out
12 September 2012 – 31 January 2014
2014-01-31
10 June 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2012-09-12
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
Exhibition
17 February 2013 – 31 August 2014
2014-08-31
10 June 2013 – 13 October 2013
2013-10-13
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2013-02-17
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
Loan-out
Lear and Cordelia
support: 711 × 991 mm
frame: 995 × 1270 × 80 mm
Purchased with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> and subscribers 1916
<p>This is the first of three <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> by Brown that illustrate scenes from Shakespeare's tragedy <i>King Lear</i>.  All three pictures are based on a series of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/pen-and-ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Pen and Ink'"><span>pen and ink</span></a> sketches produced during a trip to Paris in 1843-4.  On 2 May 1848 Brown saw William Charles Macready (1793-1873) in a production of the play, and began work on this picture in November of the same year.

</p><p>The painting illustrates Act IV, Scene vii from the play. The location is Cordelia's tent in the French camp at Dover.  Lear is asleep, his thinning hair straggling across the pillow, his hands still clutching a set of keys.  The physician on the left raises his baton and commands the musicians to play more loudly. Cordelia, anxious that her father should be allowed to sleep, utters this lament, inscribed in both spandrels of the frame: 

</p><p></p><blockquote>     Had you not been their father, these white flakes <br/>     Had challeng'd pity of them.  Was this a face<br/>     To be explosed against the warring winds?<br/>     To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?<br/><blockquote>     Mine enemy's dog,<br/></blockquote>     Though he had bit me, should have stood that might<br/>     Against my fire; and wast thou fair, poor father,<br/>     To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,<br/>     In short and musty straw!<br/></blockquote><br/>Lear's recumbent pose suggests the exhausted sleep of old age, while Cordelia, kneeling with outstretched hands, is the pitying onlooker.  The stage-like setting is organised into a many-angled tent, its shape reinforced by the shallow arch of the frame.  The isolation and stillness of the foreground figures are underlined by the half screen and the throng of musicians beyond.  They seem constricted in their movements and the bright light of the distant seashore through the tiny opening in the tent only serves to emphasise the darkness and gloom of the claustrophobic interior.

<p>Brown used models for most of the figures, but the head of Lear was inspired by 'a cast of Dante's and a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> of Coulton' (diary entry, quoted in Parris, p.65).  He used his favourite model, Maitland, for the soldiers on the right, and his new pupil and friend, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for the fool, who holds Lear in his sinister stare.  He modelled the head of Cordelia on his own wife-to-be, Emma, but the hands were those of a professional model, Mrs Ashley.  In order to render the spirit of Shakespeare's play, he chose to dress his figures in the costume of the 6<sup>th</sup> century when, according to Brown himself, as noted in his 1865 catalogue, 'paganism was still rife, and deeds were at their darkest.' Behind Lear's head he includes a detail from on of the main scenes in the Bayeux Tapestry.

</p><p>The picture was first shown at the Free Exhibition in 1849, where it was well received, but remained unsold. Brown continued to work on the picture intermittently until 1854, when it was bought by John Seddon the architect for 15 guineas.

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Leslie Parris (ed.), <i>The Pre-Raphaelites</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1984, reprinted 1994, pp.65-66, reproduced p.66, in colour.<br/>Virginia Surtees, <i>The Diary of Ford Madox Brown</i>, New Haven and London, 1981.<br/>Kenneth Bendiner, <i>The Art of Ford Madox Brown</i>, Pennsylvania 1998, p.41, reproduced fig.21.

</p><p>Frances Fowle <br/>December 2000<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>This is one of three paintings by Ford Madox Brown illustrating Shakespeare’s play <i>King Lear</i>. This scene shows Lear with his youngest daughter, Cordelia, on the right. Lear’s doctor orders the musicians to play more loudly and awaken him. But Cordelia is anxious that her ailing father should sleep and she speaks the lament inscribed on the painting’s frame. In the play Lear divides his kingdom between his other two daughters and their husbands. But, after a painful period of self-discovery, he realises that Cordelia is his only true loving child.</p>

Display caption
2007-07-10T00:00:00
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DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults architecture arm / arms raised arts and entertainment ‘Bayeaux Tapestry’ beard bed body Brown, Emma characters clothing and personal items coast Cordelia crowd crown doctor Dover - non-specific England England, South East England, Southern fine art and design, named works fine arts and music flower furnishings group groups helmet instrument, harp instrument, lute instrument, stringed jester Kent king ‘King Lear’ King Lear kneeling leisure and pastimes literature and fiction man, old medical military music music and entertainment musician named individuals objects orb people places plants and flowers pointing reclining religious and ceremonial residential Rossetti, Dante Gabriel royalty and social rank sceptre seascapes and coasts Shakespeare sleeping soldier tent UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions woman work and occupations