Parisina's Sleep: Study for the head of Parisina

Ford Madox Brown

Date: 1842

Materials: Chalk

During Brown's 'art studentship' in Paris, he began several paintings from romantic literature, including one deriving from Byron's poem 'Parisina'. This describes the adulterous love of Parisina, wife of the Marquis of Este in Ferrara, with her son-in-law Hugo.

Brown's picture (now lost) depicts the husband, called Azo in the poem, contemplating the murder of Parisina as she sleeps:

He could not slay a thing so fair -

At least not smiling - sleeping there