Shakespeare’s Juliet said, “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” and in those few words she summed up the universal sentiment of romantic love throughout time.
In ancient Greece, one Corinthian maiden must have felt such sorrow when her loved one was about to leave. According to the ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder, she traced the shadow of her beloved as he slept. Upon seeing the outline, her father, the potter Butades of Sicyon, built up a portrait of his daughter’s beloved by pressing clay onto the wall, creating the first clay model portrait, a bas-relief sculpture.
“The Corinthian Maid,” by English painter Joseph Wright, captures the moment that the young woman delicately traces the outline of her beloved on the wall as he sleeps slumped in a chair. She uses a stylus, normally used for writing on wax tablets. It’s a tender moment. She’s unsure when she will see him again.
She tentatively perches on the edge of his seat, stretching out toward the wall while being careful not to wake him, just like how a husband strokes the face of his wife while she sleeps. The tension is so palpable; we almost hold our breath with her.
Ancient Inspiration
Wright was commissioned to paint “The Corinthian Maid” by the pioneering English potter Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the famous Stoke-On-Trent pottery, Wedgwood. Established in 1759, Wedgwood pottery was, and remains, world-renowned for echoing the shapes, styles, and motifs of the ancients, and for decorative work using low reliefs.
Everything within Wright’s painting has been carefully composed to acknowledge the ancient scene and tradition that came long before Wedgwood put his hands to clay.
When Wright painted “The Corinthian Maid,” he was well aware of ancient artifacts. He spent nearly two years in Italy, from 1773 to 1775, studying and sketching archaeological sites. He used this first-hand knowledge of the ancient art and architectural sites, along with Wedgwood’s private collection of ancient Greek pottery, to correctly reference the painting.
Capturing Light and Shadow
Wright’s color palette echoes clay. The room is sparsely furnished. On the left, a curtain hides the light source that casts the shadow. Wright used this light source to evoke intimacy, using extreme contrasts in light and shade, a chiaroscuro technique he was famous for since the 1760s.
The young man in Wright’s painting is modeled on Endymion, a figure from Greek mythology. Wright referenced a study he’d made in Rome of a sculptural relief featuring Endymion. The pose Wright chose for the youth is similar to an ancient bas-relief from the Capitoline Museums in Rome, although Wright has rendered the youth’s head upright in his painting.
Legend has it that Endymion was cast into an eternal sleep, although accounts vary as to why. One common account is that the moon goddess Selene, with whom Endymion had 50 children, asked Zeus to put him to sleep so she could enjoy his beauty forever.
Endymion seems a fitting choice for the Corinthian maiden’s love, for her intent seems similar: to remember her beloved in that moment, and that’s the exact aim of portraiture.
“The Corinthian Maid,” by Joseph Wright, is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. To find out more, visit NGA.gov.
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