George Romney

(Beckside 1734-1802 Kendal)

Cimon and Iphigenia (recto); and Three Lapland Witches (verso)

Footnotes

Provenance
With The Drawing Shop, New York
Collection of Dr Alfred Scharf, and by descent to the present owner

Exhibited
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass, The drawings of George Romney, May - September 1962, no. 43, pl. 16

The source of this subject is Boccaccio's Decameron: Cimon (or Cymon) was the ill-mannered, graceless son of a Cyprian nobleman, confined to his father's country estates to keep him away from polite society. When out walking one summer morning he came upon Iphigenia with her friends sleeping by a stream and, captivated by her beauty, he instantly fell in love with her. The power of his love transformed him into a courtier with the charm and manners to win Iphigenia's love.

There is another strand to Romney's interest in Iphigenia: after he returned from Italy in 1775 Romney formed a friendship with the Greek scholar and translator the Rev. Robert Potter, and in the 1780s he began using Emma Hart (later Lady Hamilton) as a vehicle for painting figures from Greek myths, including his 1790 painting of her as Iphigenia of Mycenae. In Greek mythology Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, most familiar to us today though the tragedies of Euripides. In the 1780s Iphigenia also became one of the Attitudes for which Emma was so celebrated in Naples; the inspiration for these Attitudes is generally thought to have come from her modelling sessions for Romney earlier in the decade.

No finished painting exists by Romney of Boccaccio's Iphigenia, but a number of large-scale drawings are recorded of which the present example is one of the most extensively worked-up. Some include the figure of Cimon, here sketched in pencil on the left observing Iphigenia. Other versions are in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (L.D. 163) and of Princeton University Art Museum (no. X1942-117); and Sale, Christie, Manson and Woods Ltd, 3 July 1964, lot 23.