Peter Frederick Rothermel, The Bride of Lammermorr

Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In this climactic scene, Lucy Ashton is confronted by her true love, Edgar Ravenswood, the scion of a rival clan. However, she has just been forced by her brother to sign a document committing to an arranged marriage that would benefit the fortunes of the Ashton clan. The story was popularized by Gaetano Donizetti in his opera Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), in which six characters simultaneously express their emotional positions. Here the painter Rothermel does the same, depicting each figure’s place in the narrative through facial expression and body language.