Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Passions

Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Passions

Benjamin Smith

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Romney conceived this secular adoration to illuminate Shakespeare’s genius. It focuses on the baby poet blessed by cloaked Nature and watched by figures that embody human emotions. Joy and Sorrow act as chief attendants, while Love, Hatred, and Jealousy watch from the left and Anger, Envy, and Fear stand at right—the group a reminder of the mature playwright’s astounding range. The engraver created this proof to check his progress, with some areas still undeveloped and the stippling at an early stage. When complete, the print introduced a folio-size set of engravings based on paintings shown at the publisher John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in London’s Pall Mall.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the PassionsInfant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the PassionsInfant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the PassionsInfant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the PassionsInfant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Passions

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.