Painting
Marguerite and Faust In The Garden, After Ary Scheffer
Oil on distressed canvas 2014
31cm x 31cm
Scheffer became particularly well-known as a painter of Goethe’s Faust, a contemporary drama with roots in a sixteenth-century story. Scheffer’s interest in the Faust story can be traced back to 1825, and between 1831 and 1858 he painted eight major compositions with themes from Faust, most of them episodes centring on Marguerite.
The subject of Faust and Marguerite in the garden of her neighbour Martha who looks on with Mephistopheles comes from Part One of Goethe’s Faust. The exquisitely painted Marguerite, beautiful and innocent, has a finely modeled torso, exuding a sinuous sensuality of which she appears unaware. Faust, determined to seduce her and transformed by Mephistopheles’ magic into a handsome youth, places his head close to her while bringing about her seduction and ultimate ruin.
(from http://www.wga.hu/html_m/s/scheffer/faust.html)
