Sigismunda with the Heart of Guiscardo (after Francesco Furini)
Michael Henry Spang (fl.c.1750 - d.London 1762)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1738
Materials
Black and white chalk on paper
Measurements
419 x 319 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108920
Summary
Black and white chalk on paper, Sigismunda with the Heart of Guiscardo (after Francesco Furini) by Michael Henry Spang (fl. c.1750 -d.London 1762), 1738. Sigismunda leaning on a plinth. The story of Sigismunda is told in Boccaccio's Decameron (4th day, lst Story). When Sigismunda was sent her strangled lover's heart in a golden chalice by her jealous father, she poured distilled poison over it and drank it. Furini's painting of this subject (Trustees of the Duke of Newcastle) must have been drawn by the sculptor Spang when it was sold for the then hefty sum of £404 to Sir Thomas Sebright as a Correggio. It was this that provoked Hogarth to paint a picture of the same subject (Tate Gallery) and ask the same price of Sir Robert Grosvenor the next year - only for it to be rejected, goading Hogarth to sell it by lottery, with Time Smoking a Picture as a ticket.
Makers and roles
Michael Henry Spang (fl.c.1750 - d.London 1762), artist after Francesco Furini (Florence 1603 - Florence 1646), artist