The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)

The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)

Peter Simon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fascinated by themes of magic and erotic desire, Fuseli was a life-long devotee of Shakespeare, first reading the plays as a youth in Zurich. After settling in London, he contributed paintings to John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, launched in 1786 as an exhibition cum print-publishing scheme funded by subscribers. Simpson's print reproduces Fuseli's conception of a scene near the beginning of "The Tempest," where Prospero punishes Caliban for attempting to rape Miranda. Hovering overhead, the spirit Ariel prepares to do the magician's bidding, with a seaside grotto used to indicate the island setting. Emblematic creatures are placed strategically near each character–a moth above Miranda, sprites and a cat by Prospero, and shell-fish and evil-looking monkey next to Caliban. This impression comes from an 1852 American reissue spearheaded by Shearjashub Spooner, a New York dental surgeon, writer and art scholar who acquired Boydell's heavily worn plates and had them reworked. His New York edition was printed on thick cream paper with small numbers added in the lower left margin, this being number 6.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)The Enchanted Island Before the Cell of Prospero - Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.