Hermia and Lysander (painting)

{{Short description|1870 painting by John Simmons}}

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File:Simmons-Hermia and Lysander. A Midsummer Night's Dream.jpg

Hermia and Lysander is a watercolour painting created in 1870 by the British illustrator and portrait miniature painter John Simmons. Based on a scene from Act II, scene II of William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, it measures {{convert|89|by|74|cm}}.{{r|Sothebys}}

Fairy paintings were a popular genre in the later 19th century with many based on scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream and Simmons produced several pieces in this genre.{{r|Bonhams}} According to the art historian Christopher Wood, an expert in Victorian painting,{{r|Telegraph}} the details included in Simmons' fairy paintings were "executed with an astonishing clarity"{{sfnp|Wood|2008|p=124|ps=}} and gave the impression they had been painted on a glass surface.{{sfnp|Wood|2008|p=124|ps=}} The majority of Simmons' depictions of fairies were of naked females and Wood considered them the "bunny girls of the Victorian era".{{sfnp|Wood|2008|p=126|ps=}}

The watercolour painting, also using gouache,{{r|Artnet}} shows Hermia with her lover Lysander when they are lost in an enchanted wood.{{r|Sothebys}} The couple are surrounded by a community of fairies; some are pictured in flight using their delicate wings, others are transported in chariots shackled to mice.{{r|Sothebys}} The couple are tired and disorientated, appearing unaware of the crowds of animals and fairies around them.{{r|Sothebys}} Lysander is seated and touching Hermia's fingers with one hand while indicating the soft forest moss with his other hand. It is the point in the tale of A Midsummer Night's Dream when he invites her to rest, saying:{{r|Sothebys}}{{blockquote|One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;

One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.}}

The painting achieved a sale price of £42,470 when auctioned in New York by Sotheby's in May 2012, a record price for work by this artist.{{r|Post}} It had previously been auctioned by Sotheby's in London on 19 June 1984 and a decade later by Sotheby's, New York, on 25 May 1994, when it was wrongly attributed to Julius Simmons.{{r|Sothebys}}

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