<< YCBA Home Yale Center for British Art Yale Center for British Art << YCBA Home

YCBA Collections Search

 
IIIF Actions
Creator:
Francis Danby, 1793–1861
Title:

Study for 'Calypso's Grotto'

Date:
ca. 1843
Medium:
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
5 x 7 1/2 inches (12.7 x 19.1 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed, lower left: "F. Danby"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.199
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1981.25.199FR
Subject Terms:
arch | beach | cave | grotto | landscape | mythology | nude | ocean | religious and mythological subject | rocks (landforms) | shore (landform) | study (visual work) | sunset | water | woman
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:709
Export:
XML
IIIF Manifest:
JSON

Francis Danby, an Irish-born romantic painter, is best remembered for his oscillation between poetic and quasi-apocalyptic subject matter. This painting captures this stark dualism by portraying an evocative sunset and introspective glow characteristic of Danby’s works, while imparting a sense of the sublime through the steep incline of the coastal cliffs on the right. Calypso, a classical archetype of the beautiful but deceptive woman, might allude to the expanding underbelly of manufacturing hubs in Britain. The contrast of the jagged cliffs with the calm ocean links the classical, embodied in Calypso, to the realities of the turbulent political situation in 1840s Europe. Danby harkens back to mythology nostalgically, while stressing the sense of unease and isolation resulting from rapid social and technological change.

Gallery label for Art in Focus: The British Castle - A Symbol in Stone (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-04-07 - 2017-08-06)

Art in Focus : The British Castle - A Symbol in Stone (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-04-07 - 2017-08-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An exhibition of "small pictures for small rooms" No. II : A collection of cabinet pictures by old masters ranging from the 15th to the 19th centuries, Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, 1966, p. 22, lot 67, DealerCat Thos. Agnew (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 78-79, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

The British Castle : A Symbol in Stone, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2017, p. 32, cat. 28, V2722 (YCBA) [YCBA]


If you have information about this object that may be of assistance please contact us.