Sabrina
Samuel Palmer British
Not on view
Palmer’s poetic image contemplates evening quietude in Wales. Painted to mark the artist’s election to full membership in London’s Society of Painters in Water-Colours, the image uses sunlight to emphasize the form of Sabrina, a nymph of the river Severn who oversees drinking cattle. Palmer took the subject from John Milton’s Comus (1637), a masque, or dramatic performance, set near Mount Plynlimon in central Wales—a region the artist had toured. Replicating the dazzling effects of sunlight, the image moves from detailed hills in the center distance to broadly rendered passages in the left and right foreground. Shell gold (pure metal mixed with gum) was applied to brighten leaves near the sun, while touches of gouache (a matte, opaque form of watercolor) highlight nearer forms.
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