Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom
(1848-1851)

• Edwin LANDSEER

This painting illustrates a scene from William Shakespeare’s famous comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We see Titania, Queen of the Fairies, at the moment when, drugged with a love potion, she becomes enchanted with the artisan Bottom, who has been magically turned into an ass. The painting was commissioned from Landseer by the wealthy industrialist Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–59), Chief Engineer of Britain’s Great Western Railway and one of the nineteenth century’s greatest engineers and inventors. When the author Lewis Carroll once saw the painting it inspired him to create the character of the White Rabbit for his children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1851, no. 157, lent by Brunel; The Works of the late Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1874, no. 236, lent by Earl Brownlow; Winter exhibition of British artists deceased since 1850, Royal Academy, London, 1901, no. 67, lent by Sir William Cuthbert Quilter; Franco-British Exhibition, Shepherd’s Bush (present-day White City), London, 1908, no. 88, lent by Sir William Cuthbert Quilter; Sir Edwin Landseer, Tate, London and Philadelphia, 1981–2, no 139; The First Fifty Years: 19th Century British Art from the Gallery Archives, NGV, Melbourne, 1992; Hidden Treasures, David Jones Gallery, Sydney, 1992; Victorian Fairy Painting, Royal Academy, London, touring to The University of Iowa and The Art Gallery of Ontario, 1997–98, no. 12.