Desdemona (The Song of the Willow)

This painting is based on a print, part of a suite of fifteen etchings by Chassériau illustrating Shakespeare’s Othello, which was published in Paris in 1844. It depicts act 4, scene 3 of the play, a final moment of calm preceding Desdemona’s murder by her husband, Othello. The lyre she holds was not described by Shakespeare; Chassériau observed it in an 1836 production in which the role was performed by the celebrated singer Maria Malibran Garcia (1808–1836), called La Malibran, who was the model for the figure of Desdemona in the etching.

Credit: Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019