Francis Wheatley. Silvia Rescued by Valentine, 1792.


Oil on canvas, approximately 52.5 x 65.5 inches. Yale Center For British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.


At the end of The Two Gentlemen of Verona Proteus rescues Silvia from the robbers who waylay her on her way to meet her fiance Valentine. Proteus yields to his lust and threatens Silvia; "I'll woo you like a soldier, at arm's end, / And love you 'gainst the nature of love--force ye." At that moment Valentine comes forth to save Silvia from rape. Then in an amazing turn of events, Proteus apologizes, Valentine accepts his best friend's apology, and gives Silvia to Proteus: "And, that my love may appear plain and free, / All that was mine in Silvia I give thee." As he often does, Shakespeare once again allows friendship to triumph over love.

Wheatley painted this picture for James Woodmason's Irish Shakespeare Gallery (1793), a collection of Shakespeare paintings by various artists modelled on a similar project launched earlier in London by John Boydell.