The Dream of Sardanapalus
Date1871
Artist
Ford Madox Brown
(English painter and designer, 1821–1893)
MediumWatercolor and gouache on paper
Dimensions18 1/2 × 22 in. (47 × 55.9 cm)
frame: 28 × 31 3/4 in. (71.1 × 80.6 cm)
frame: 28 × 31 3/4 in. (71.1 × 80.6 cm)
Credit LineSamuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935
Object number1935-38
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextIn 1870, Ford Madox Brown contributed illustrations to a collection of Byron’s poems edited by William Michael Rossetti, brother of Dante Gabriel. As was often the case, the illustration was later worked up as an oil painting. The poem recounts the story of a benign Assyrian king who is wounded during a rebel uprising. Brown depicts the injured king lying within his castle, attended by his faithful slave Myrrha, as the battle rages outside. The palace walls are decorated with scenes Brown copied from Assyrian reliefs recently discovered by archaeologist Austen Henry Layard.
