Madeline after Prayer, from "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, stanza XIX, lines 4-5
Not on view
An accomplished painter of history and drama, Maclise came close to the Pre-Raphaelites late in his career, when he painted Madeline after Prayer (1868; Guildhall Art Gallery, London), inspired by John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes. Madeline is preparing for bed, hoping to dream of a future husband. Blanchard’s etching contrasts the maiden’s moonlit beauty with the deeply shadowed room. The poem tells us that she is
watched by a hidden suitor:
Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal
taint.
Anon, his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees. . . .
The detailed setting and our proximity to the main figure distinguish the conception from John Everett Millais’s 1863 version of the subject.
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