Twelfth Night. 1850. Oil on canvas, 40 x 52 inches (101.6 x 132.1 cm). Private collection.
Deverell first exhibited this work, undoubtedly his masterpiece, at the National Institution of the Fine Arts at the Portland Gallery. He was likely encouraged to send his picture there by Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was showing his Ecce Ancilla Domini at the same venue that year. Some artists favoured this venue because it was known to be radical and anti-institutional. Twefth Night is Deverell’s largest surviving painting and was clearly intended to make a statement about the artist’s affiliation with Pre-Raphaelitism. Although a somewhat awkward composition it was painted on the strict early Pre-Raphaelite principles of “truth to nature” established by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood when they were all painting in a similar group fashion.
The picture was painted in meticulous detail in brilliant sunlight with bright clear tones worked thinly, like watercolour, over a white ground. The foliage, the detailing on the stone-carved bench, and the costumes of the characters are all conscientiously rendered. The painting illustrates Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act II, scene 4, in which Orsino, Duke of Illyria, who is tormented by his unrequited love for the Lady Olivia, orders his clown Feste to sing the song 'Come away, come away, death'. On the left, gazing intently at Orsino, sits Viola who is disguised as a boy and who is acting as his page, Cesario. Unknown to the duke she loves him passionately. There is something reminiscent of the stage about the setting, which undoubtedly reflects the fact that Deverell was a keen amateur actor and very interested in the theatre. Early in their careers the artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood frequently sat to each other or used their friends and relations as models. This was partly because they could not afford to use professional models but also because such models were themselves products of the academic system they despised and using nonprofessional models gave greater authenticity to their works. In Twelfth Night Deverell painted Orsino from himself, Feste from D. G. Rossetti, and Viola from Elizabeth Siddal. Siddal was a nonprofessional model that Deverell had discovered working in a milliner’s shop and this was the first time she had sat to an artist within the Pre-Raphaelite circle. The painting also includes a lively background with many subsidiary figures.
When the Brotherhood met in 1848 to draw up a list of Immortals, Shakespeare was one of only two who received three stars, the highest number that anyone achieved with the exception of Christ who was allotted four. Many of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s most celebrated early paintings are based on Shakespeare and Shakespearean subjects account for a large proportion of the small number of pictures Deverell painted before his early death. The play Twelfth Night inspired not only this painting, but also an etching which Deverell executed for The Germ, which was published in May 1850. As John Christian has noted: “Shakespearian subjects also appealed to the Pre-Raphaelites because they helped them to realise their ideal of painting meaningful subjects, themes that treated real emotions or made some profound social comment…After the Bible, which the Pre-Raphaelites also mined for subjects, Shakespeare was the most obvious source of themes rich in moral significance, with the possible exception of Dante” (“The Forbes Collection.” London: Christie’s (February 19, 2003): lot 36, 250). The Pre-Raphaelites were fond of using symbolism to bring out the moral implications of their subjects, including utilizing the language of flowers. The most obvious examples in this painting are the honeysuckle flowers that climb the back of Orsino's throne, and the passion flowers that entwine the carved masonry between him and Viola. Both of these flowers symbolize devotion and love.
Although Twelfth Night attracted considerable attention when it appeared at the National Institution, the reviews were mixed. The critic for the Illustrated London News was complimentary: “Among the painters who have sought for subjects in the vast body of English poetry, no one is more successful than Mr. Deverell ... Amidst a certain oddity of treatment and hardness of manner, there is a right interpretation of the poet's meaning, and a minstrel and medieval feeling not commonly seen in the work of English artists” (Illustrated London News, 16, (April 20, 1850): 278). The reviewer for The Athenaeum also generally had a favourable view:
Another youthful champion appears in the field in which Mr. Dante Rosetti [sic] and other young men whose works do not appear on these walls, are leaders – in the person of Mr. W. Deverell. His picture is a scene from Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ (143). We confess, we view this youthful effort with something more of tolerance than that of his more practised brother [Rossetti] in this affected style. He worships with more unassuming faith his false idol. His very lack of knowledge befriends him. There are germs of fine perception, both of beauty and of character, scattered about the work. He has not been entirely able to enslave his mind to the task of puerile and affected imitation; but - perhaps it may be his own despite - has painted, here and there, heads and limbs with an appreciation of higher and better examples than those which enthral the minds of his pre-Raphaelite brethrens. We advise him to give way to that more generous emulation; to look at Nature as she is, and as the great masters have taught us to see her - and not through the eyes of those who were themselves in the trammels of ignorance. [Athenaeum, No. 1174, April 27, 1850): 455]
The critic of The Times preferred Rossetti’s Ecce Ancilla Domini, which it likened to “a leaf torn out of a missal” whereas “Mr. Deverell attempts to turn the flat medieval style to more human account, but his faces are common, and, though he is a careful worker, his mannerism is more conspicuous than his genius. Mr. Rossetti's picture, on the other hand, is the work of a poet” (Times (April 15, 1850): 5).
Twelfth Night failed to sell at the National Institution. In March 1853 Rossetti was trying to persuade his patron Francis McCracken, a Belfast shipping agent, to purchase it but nothing came of this scheme. A buyer did not materialise either when Deverell re-exhibited the picture at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin later that year. After this showing Deverell retouched the picture slightly. He never lived long enough to have the satisfaction of seeing his picture sold. The painting went on to have a distinguished provenance. The noted Liverpool collector John Miller, who had failed to buy it when initially offered the opportunity while Deverell was still alive, was its first owner. It subsequently belonged to William Bell Scott and was later in the Forbes Magazine Collection.
Last modified 8 March 2022