TitleJuliet (or) Juliet on the Balcony
Artist
Daniel Huntington
(American, 1816 - 1906)
Date[c.1862]
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 12 × 10 in.
Framed: 17 3/4 × 15 3/4 × 2 in.
SignedSigned lower left: D. Huntington ***an erroneous date
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Bequest of James A. Suydam, 1865
Object number605-P
Label TextHuntington listed this work as Juliet in his "Inventory" as having been purchased (or, perhaps, only paid for) by James A. Suydam on May 22, 1862. The painting was exhibited in the Academy annual that was held soon after. Academy registration records compiled in the early 1950s state that this painting was inscribed with the date "1857." Those same records, however, document damage to the lower-left corner of the work, the very area where the date is said to have been located, and "slight restoration" to the lower edge of the canvas. It is now apparent that if a date had ever been visible on the canvas, it was tampered with, removed, or obliterated, possibly during conservation in the early 1950s. Certainly, no inscribed date is now visible. In fact, secondary evidence suggests that the actual date of execution is more likely to have been during the season just before Suydam purchased the painting.
Besides having been first shown in the spring of 1862, the painting was also dated 1862 in the Century Association's 1908 exhibition of the artist's works. Huntington painted three other Shakespearean subjects in 1862: Portia as Doctor of Laws, Shylock, and Miranda. However, studies in his sketchbooks show that the subject of Juliet had interested him as early as the mid-1840s.
