Haïdée
Artist
Charles Chaplin
(French, 1825-1891)
Date1873
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 40 x 25 1/2 in. (101.6 x 64.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 50 1/2 x 36 in. (128.3 x 91.4 cm)
Overall, Frame: 50 1/2 x 36 in. (128.3 x 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsEuropean art
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.2063
Terms
- Woman
Collections
On View
Not on viewLabel TextCharles Chaplin French, 1825–1891 Haïdée, 1873 Oil on canvas In Lord Byron’s epic poem Don Juan (1818–24), the hero is shipwrecked on a remote island and nursed back to health by a young Greek woman named Haïdée. The gentle girl and Don Juan secretly marry, but ultimately she cannot protect him from her father, a vicious pirate and slave-trader. Here Charles Chaplin contrasts the girl’s innocent expression with her exotic, revealing costume to heighten sexual tension. Finding such themes shallow, critic Charles Baudelaire derided Chaplin in 1859 as a leader in “the cult of the pretty.” Nonetheless, while other artists began to favor modern subjects and experimental painting techniques, paintings of beautiful maidens from literature and mythology by Chaplin, Bouguereau, and their contemporaries continued to seduce many viewers and collectors. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2063
