  About the Artwork
  
  
  The subject of this painting is based on a passage from Edmund Spenser’s
“Faerie Queene,” an epic poem published in 1590. Many American artists, including John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, looked to Spenser’s work for inspiration. Allston’s representation of Florimell, a symbol of virtue and chastity who flees an unseen evil, follows Spenser’s description of the heroine very closely: “Still as she fled her eyes she backward threw / As fearing evil that pursued her fast / And her fair yellow locks behind her flew.”
  
  
  Title
  The Flight of Florimell
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1819
  
  Artist
  Washington Allston
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1779-1843
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 36 × 28 inches (91.4 × 71.1 cm)
  Framed: 47 1/8 × 39 1/4 × 4 1/2 inches (119.7 × 99.7 × 11.4 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  City of Detroit Purchase
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  44.165
  
  
  Copyright
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