Frederic George Stephens

The Proposal (The Marquis and Griselda)

c.1850

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

Not on display

Artist: Frederic George Stephens 1827–1907
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 806 × 648 mm
frame: 1020 × 855 × 100 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by H.F. Stephens 1932
Reference: N04633

Display caption

This is a scene from The Clerk’s Tale, one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales. The marquis of Saluzzo has fallen in love with a poor but beautiful peasant girl, Griselda, and is proposing marriage to her. He goes on to subject her to a series of appalling trials to test her love. But Griselda is patient and eventually wins his devotion.The background of this picture was painted from life in the kitchen of the rural lodgings that Stephens shared with his friends Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, at Knole in Kent.

Gallery label, July 2007

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Explore

architecture(41,310)
- features(8,901)
- - window(1,054)
emotions, concepts and ideas(16,531)
- emotions and human qualities(5,350)
- - love(512)
interiors(4,628)
- domestic(1,812)
- - living room(299)
literature and fiction(3,162)
- literature (not Shakespeare)(2,296)
- - Chaucer, Geoffrey, ‘Canterbury Tales: The Clerk’s Tale’(2)
nature(45,225)
- animals: birds(1,286)
- - chicken(74)
- landscape(25,918)
- - wooded(8,258)
objects(23,363)
- clothing and personal items(5,879)
- - hat(1,444)
- furnishings(3,080)
- - table(762)
- vessels and containers(2,152)
- - jug(230)
people(35,142)
- actions: expressive(2,631)
- - holding hands(150)
  - talking(608)
- actions: postures and motions(9,097)
- - sitting(3,323)
  - standing(3,131)
- actions: processes and functions(2,147)
- - looking / watching(580)
- adults(22,742)
- - man(10,483)
  - man, old(380)
  - woman(9,059)
places(41,571)
- UK cities, towns and villages(12,754)
- - Sevenoaks, Knole(3)
- UK counties(19,628)
- - Kent(1,086)
- UK countries and regions(24,412)
- - England(19,249)
  - England, South East(5,957)
  - England, Southern(9,005)
society(34,938)
- sex and relationships(5,324)
- - couple(1,291)
  - courting(31)

You might like

Ford Madox Brown Lear and Cordelia

1849–54

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Arthur Hughes The Eve of St Agnes

1856
William Holman Hunt The Awakening Conscience

1853
Robert Braithwaite Martineau The Last Day in the Old Home

1862
Simeon Solomon Faust and Marguerite

c.1856

View by appointment
Arthur Boyd Houghton Punch and Judy

c.1860
Charles Robert Leslie Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman

1842
Charles Robert Leslie A Scene from Milton’s ‘Comus’

exhibited 1844
John Rogers Herbert Sir Thomas More and his Daughter

1844, exhibited 1844
Theodor von Holst The Fairy Lovers

c.1840

On display at Tate Britain part of Spotlights
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid

1862
Augustus Leopold Egg Past and Present, No. 1

1858

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art
Thomas Webster A Letter from the Colonies

1852
William Holman Hunt Claudio and Isabella

1850
John Phillip The Prison Window

1857

In the shop

Browse the shop