3-008-654 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition - Sterne's "Maria", by Andrea Appiani Jun., of Milan, 1862. Engraving of a painting. 'The "Maria" of the "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental Journey" is one of the most touching and beautiful of all Sterne's felicitious delineations, and the poor heartbroken, crazed village maiden is so admirably realised by Signor Appiani...The painter has represented...Maria...sitting under a poplar. "She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand; a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. She was dressed in white, and much as my friend (Mr. Shandy) described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted with a silken net...Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she kept tied by a string to her girdle. As I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string. 'Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,' said she". The position of this picture, which had already made a reputation, and indeed the general carelessness, if not partiality, shown in the hanging of all the Italian pictures, is a disgrace to the Fine-Art Commissioners for Italy'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.