  About the Artwork
  
  
  Zoffany may be considered one of the English theater's earliest historians, for he documented the dramas of his time. Instead of simply posing actors in costume, he informally arranged them on the stage as if during the course of a performance, producing a variation on the popular group portrait style called a "conversation piece." Isaac Bickerstaffe's "Love in a Village" opened at Covent Garden on December 8, 1762, with Edward Shuter, John Beard, and John Dunstall in the cast. Zoffany depicts Beard pronouncing the character's motto: "Health, good humour, and competence." It is unlikely that the subject of the painting on the back wall, the Judgment of Solomon, has any implications for the action: in another version of this scene, the painting is Van Dyck's Children of Charles I.
  
  
  Title
  Scene from &quot;Love in a Village&quot;
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1767
  
  Artist
  John Zoffany
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1733-1810
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  English
  
  
  
  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: 40 1/2 × 50 1/2 inches (102.9 × 128.3 cm)
  Framed: 48 1/2 × 57 3/4 × 2 5/8 inches (123.2 × 146.7 × 6.7 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Painting
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Edgar B. Whitcomb
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  47.398
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
