Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
The Merry Wives of Windsor: Dr. Caius, Simple and Dame Quickly
Robert Walter Weir (born New York City 1803-died New York City 1889)
1830
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 20 7/8 x 17 1/2 in. (53.1 x 44.5 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum Purchase
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
American artists, actors, and writers during the nineteenth century were still heavily influenced by English literature, and Shakespeare’s plays enjoyed many revivals. In this painting, Robert W. Weir illustrated a moment in The Merry Wives of Windsor when a character finds his rival’s servant in his closet. Weir gave the two men comical expressions of horror to emphasize the slapstick nature of the scene.
