Celadon and Amelia, 1793

  • William Hamilton, English, 1751-1801

Oil on canvas

  • Unframed: 60 5/8 × 48 7/8 inches (154 × 124.1 cm)
  • 69 1/8 × 57 × 2 3/4 inches (175.6 × 144.8 × 7 cm)

Founders Society Purchase

68.159

On View

  • Era of Revolution, Level 3, South

Department

European Painting

Hamilton chose an English nature poem, "The Seasons," as the subject of this romantic painting. In the section on Summer, the poem tells of the young lovers Celadon and Amelia, a perfect couple who were caught in a summer storm. Amelia was overcome by the powerful force of the tempest and died in the arms of her horrified and distraught lover.

Signed and dated, lower right: Wm Hamilton R.A. | 1793

Count de Aulby (England)

Wilbur Foshay (England)

(Brown and Bigelow)

by 1965, Robert Edward Peters (New York, New York, USA)

1968, (Max Schweitzer, New York, New York, USA)

1968-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

English Revivalism: 1750-1870, The Aesthetic of Nostalgia. Exh. cat., University of Michigan Musuem of Art. Ann Arbor, 1968, p. 7. Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, 1915–1965. Exh. cat., Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Minneapolis, 1965, unpaginated (ill.). [as The Rescue.] Cummings, Frederick J., ed. Selected Works from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1979, p. 85, no. 55 (ill.). Love Everlasting: The Art of Romance Through the Millennia. Exh. cat., Flint Institute of Arts. Flint, 2000, pp. 74-75, cat. 32 (ill.).

William Hamilton, Celadon and Amelia, 1793, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, 68.159.