MIRANDA'S FIRST SIGHT OF FERDINAND
signed and dated W. Maw Egley 1863 lower left; signed and inscribed with a scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest and the artist's address Miranda's first sight of Ferdinand / Prospero. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance / And say, what thou seest yond? / Miranda. What is 't? a spirit? / Tempest. Act 1. Sc. 2. / Painted by / W. Maw Egley / 12 Hereford Road North / Westbournia. / W. on a label attached to the backboard
oil on canvas, painted arch
66.6 x 43.3cm; 26¼ x 17in (with rounded top)
86 x 63cm; 33 3/4 x 24 3/4in (framed)

Property from a Private Collection, Cumbria

Provenance
Sale, Sotheby's Belgravia, 24 March 1981, lot 202 (purchased by the present owner)

Born in Marylebone, Maw Egley learnt to paint under the guidance of his father, the portraitist and miniaturist William Egley (1798-1870). His early tuition included drawing literary illustrations of Molière and Shakespeare, and as the present painting attests, his work is typically rich in costume and historical references. In London Egley exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Further afield he showed at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. He also worked as an assistant to William Powell Frith. His work is in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Britain and the Holbourne Museum, Bath.