Catalogue entry
T02109 THE DEATH OF AMELIA ?1804
Inscribed ‘S. Coleman/pinxit/18[?]04’ on stone b.r.
Oil on canvas, 24 13/16 × 29 13/16 (63.0 × 75.7)
Purchased at Bonham's (Grant-in-Aid) 1977
Prov: ...sold Bonham's, 17 February 1977 (89, as ‘Stormy Coastal Landscape with Figures in the foreground’ by H. Fuseli), bt. Tate Gallery.
The subject is taken from ‘Summer’, part of The Seasons by James Thomson, published in 1727. The painting illustrates the episode of the death of Amelia in the thunderstorm told in lines 1171–1222, particularly lines 1214–19:
‘From his [Celadon's] void embrace,
Mysterious Heaven! That moment to the ground,
A blackened corse, was struck the beauteous maid.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless, and fixed in all the death of woe?’
The same subject was treated by William Williams (1784; Tate T00519), G. Arnold (RA 1794; present whereabouts unknown), and Fuseli (RA 1801; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe). The present painting in many ways resembles Richard Wilson's ‘Celadon and Amelia’ (W. G. Constable, Richard Wilson, 1953, plate 24b; present whereabouts unknown) which was engraved by Woollett and etched by Browne in 1766, and was presumably the picture exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1765 (157)… (read more)
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