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Desdemona's Defence
Desdemons's Defence
By Hugo Konig
Taken from Pictures from Royal Academy of London 1889
This painting from "Othello," where the Duke and Senate are summoned on the appeal of Brabantio to determine whether the marriage of the Moor with the Senator's fair daughter is proper and legal, is one of the most forcible for stage effect in this play; the time is night, and the artificially lighted chamber is well depicted in [the] illustration.
This scene has always been a favorite one with artists, and although some of the earlier masters of the English school gave somewhat crude pictures of the situation, the later painters of the British school have given some masterly pictures of this subject; none, however, we think, equal to the one we now photogravure from Hugo Konig's great picture.
There have been very considerable diversity of opinion as to how Othello should be represented; some of the old actors represented him as an undoubted negro, and several modern artists have followed their example. But the best actors of the present day play him as a swathy Moore of the highest intellectual type and most perfect physique. Among those adopting this model we may name Edwin Booth, Salvini, Lawrence Barrett, and the late John McCullough.
Hugo Konig
Hugo Konig was born at Munich about 1840. He studied art at the academy of his native city; is now professor of Historical Painting there.
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Click the Buy It Button to order this original 1889 photogravure entitled, "Desdemona's Defence"
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