This watercolour is based on a scene from Byron’s play ‘Two Foscari’ (1847-55). Set in fifteenth-century Venice, Foscari, the Doge’s son, has been imprisoned for murder, and is saying farewell to his wife Marina. The layers of pigment have been built up to give the effect of an oil painting. Ford Madox Brown originally designed this as an engraved illustration to Moxon’s edition of ‘The Poetical Works of Lord Byron’ (1870). During his career he painted a dozen scenes from Byron’s work, often changing the scale or medium.
