Maria (painting)

Maria
ArtistCharles Landseer
Year1836
TypeOil on canvas, genre painting
Dimensions55.9 cm × 46.9 cm (22.0 in × 18.5 in)
LocationVictoria and Albert Museum, London

Maria is an 1836 oil painting by the English artist Charles Landseer.[1] It is inspired by a passage in the 1768 novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by the Anglo-Irish author Laurence Sterne.[2] It depicts Maria, a mournful young woman left disconsolate by her husband's death. She is accompanied by a small dog.[3]

The painting was displayed at the 1836 exhibition of the British Institution, held at Pall Mall. It was purchased by John Sheepshanks, a noted collector of contemporary British art, who in 1857 donated it to the new Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington as part of the Sheepshanks Gift.[4]

References

  1. ^ Roe p.191
  2. ^ Gordon p.88
  3. ^ Landseer, Charles (1836), Maria, retrieved 2025-11-17
  4. ^ "Maria (painting)". artuk.org. Retrieved 2025-11-17.

Bibliography

  • Gerard, W.B. Laurence Sterne and the Visual Imagination. Taylor & Francis, 2016.
  • Gordon, Katherine May. British Paintings of Subjects from the English Novel, 1740-1870. Garland, 1988.
  • Roe, Sonia. Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Public Catalogue Foundation, 2008.