L'Allegro

Object Type

Oil paintings such as this with subjects taken from literature steadily replaced commissions for history paintings in the early 19th century. The public and most collectors of modern works started to prefer lighter and sometimes more sentimental themes.

Subjects Depicted

This painting is an illustration to John Milton's 1632 poem 'L'Allegro' where he is calling upon Euphrosyne, the goddess of Mirth 'So buxom, blithe and debonair'. The goddess is shown closing her ear with her hand against the counsels of love. It is a companion work to Cope's Il Penseroso also described here.

People

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Charles West Cope (1811-1890) was a landscape watercolourist as well as an oil painter. He was a friend of the collector John Sheepshanks who gave nine of Cope's works to the Museum. Nearly all his paintings were literary, biblical or historical subjects and domestic genre. He studied fresco painting in Italy and painted several frescos in the Palace of Westminster. Cope exhibited 134 works at the Royal Academy and in 1870 was appointed examiner in painting at the South Kensington Schools of Art, the forerunner of the Royal College of Art.