Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5

Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5

Daniel Maclise

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An accomplished painter of history and drama, Maclise came close to the Pre-Raphaelites late in his career, when he painted Madeline after Prayer (1868; Guildhall Art Gallery, London), inspired by John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes. Madeline is preparing for bed, hoping to dream of a future husband. Blanchard’s etching contrasts the maiden’s moonlit beauty with the deeply shadowed room. The poem tells us that she is watched by a hidden suitor: Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. Anon, his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees. . . . The detailed setting and our proximity to the main figure distinguish the conception from John Everett Millais’s 1863 version of the subject.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5

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.