Painting of two figures within a darkened tomb, titled 'Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene. 'Noise again! Then I’ll be brief’'. To the centre of the scene, Romeo lies dead on the floor, an empty brass goblet lying beside his head. Juliet kneels by his side and raises her arm in response to the shadow of a man emerging to her left. She holds a dagger in her right hand. Outside the tomb it is night. Painted by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734 - 1797). Oil on canvas in gilded frame.

Exhibitions:

  • Title: 22nd Exhibition of the Royal Academy
    Venue: Royal Academy of Arts
    Dates: from 16/04/1790 to 16/04/1790
  • Title: 23rd Exhibition of the Society of Artists
    Dates: from 16/04/1791 to 16/04/1791
  • Title: Paintings by Joseph Wright, A.R.A., commonly called "Wright of Derby", together with some Original Drawings, and a Complete Collection of Prints after his Works
    Venue: Derby Corporation Art Gallery
    Dates: from 16/04/1883 to 16/04/1883
  • Title: Wright of Derby
    Venue: Tate Gallery
    Dates: from 16/04/1990 to 16/04/1990
  • Title: Sombras/Shadows
    Venue: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
    Dates: from 10/02/2009 to 17/05/2009
  • Title: Le Enfants du Paradis
    Venue: Musée Cantini, Marseille
    Dates: from 01/09/2009 to 03/01/2010
  • Title: Love
    Venue: Musee du Louvre-Lens
    Dates: from 26/09/2018 to 21/01/2019
  • Title: Exhibition of the Derby Mechanics' Institution
    Venue: Derby Mechanics' Institute
    Dates: from 16/04/2026 to 16/04/2026
  • Title: Exhibition Held for the Benefit of the Town and County Museum
    Dates: from 16/04/2026 to 16/04/2026

Publications

  • Title: Wright of Derby
    Published Place: London
    Copyright: The Tate Gallery
    Published Year: 1990
  • Title: Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light
    Sub-Title: Volume 1
    Volume: 1
    Published Place: London
    Copyright: Benedict Nicolson, 1968
    Published Year: 1968

Related People

  • Joseph Wright of Derby (Artist)

    Display Date: British, 1734 - 1797

    Nationality: British

    Biography: Artist.

Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene. ‘Noise again! Then I’ll be brief’

Date: c. 1790

Medium: Oil on canvas.

Object Type:Painting
Dimensions:Frame: 2070 × 2650 × 100 mm (81 1/2 × 104 5/16 × 3 15/16 in.) Support: 1778 × 2413 mm (70 × 95 in.)
Description:This painting illustrates the moment in Shakespeare’s famous play when Juliet wakes from her drugged sleep to discover her husband, Romeo, dead beside her. Hearing a guard approaching she snatches Romeo’s dagger and, with the lines ‘Noise again! Then I’ll be brief,’ takes her own life. The picture was not well received. Painted just after the death of Wright's wife Anne, it was originally produced for the print seller John Boydell. He was setting up a ‘Shakespeare Gallery’ in London, but rejected the picture much to Wright's distress. Wright exhibited it twice in London in 1790 and 1791. He reworked it, but it remained unsold during his lifetime. Wright wrote to John Leigh Philips, ‘The two pictures I exhibited last year in the Royal Academy of Romeo and Juliet and Antigonus in the Storm, were certainly painted too dark, sad emblems of my then gloomy mind…’
Provenance:Not in Wright’s Account Book (painted on his own initiative for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery); rejected by Boydell, and remained in Wright's possession; offered in Wright’s posthumous sale, Christie’s 6 May 1801 (lot 51, as 'Romeo and Juliet in the Sepulchre'), bought in at £47.5.0; offered Derby 11 October 1810 (lot 7, as 'Romeo and Juliet in the Sepulchre'), but unsold; purchased from Wright’s executors by Robert Moseley and his nephew, by 1839, by whom raffled during the 1843 exhibition at Derby; Henry Moseley, later its owner, from whom purchased by Mrs Thomas Hope in 1857; Thomas Haden Oakes by 1883; by descent to James Oakes, from whom purchased by Derby Art Gallery in 1981.
Viewing Status:Contact Us
Item Ref:1981-330
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Browse Collection