In 1823 Francesco Hayez presented two paintings related to the history of Juliet and Romeo at the annual Brera exhibition: Gli Sponsali di Giulietta and Romeo procurati da fra Lorenzo, or, The Marriage of Romeo and Juliet (fig. 1, Graf Von Schönborn Kunstsammlungen, Pommersfelden), and one of his most celebrated works, L’Ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo, che obbligato a fuggire sta per iscendere dalla finestra; il fondo rappresenta l’alba nascente; la fante trasporta altrove la lucerna; l’architettura ricorda i tempi in cui vissero questi sventurati sposi”, or, The Last Kiss of Romeo and Juliet (fig. 2, Villa Carlotta, Tremezzo). Both the paintings were commissioned by famous collectors: The Marriage by Franz Erwein von Schönborn-Wiesentheid, a Bavarian aristocrat and politician, and The Last Kiss by Giambattista Sommariva, an Italian politician and a notable patron of the arts. Both works achieved remarkable success, as evidenced by enthusiastic reviews in local newspapers as well as by the great numbers of reproductions of the compositions (in particular for The Last Kiss) executed in a variety of different media, including engravings, illuminations and cameos.

Hayez used as inspiration both Shakespeare’s famous play and Luigi Da Porto’s Novella novamente ritrovata (c. 1531), which contained the story of Romeo and Juliet and had itself informed Shakespeare’s perhaps better-known reprisal. The two paintings marked a turning point, affirming the ascendency of a new Romantic taste which favoured subjects drawn from events and legends of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. These newly fashionable themes replaced the subjects taken from classical antiquity which had dominated the imaginations of the immediately preceding Neoclassical period.

Hayez returned to the tale of Juliet and Romeo several times in the 1820s and 1830s: at least five other versions of The Last Kiss and two further versions of The Marriage are recorded (see F. Mazzocca, Francesco Hayez. Catalogo Ragionato, Milan, 1994, nos. 67, 68, 155, 182, 198 for The Last Kiss and nos. 85 and 147 for The Marriage). Furthermore, Hayez chose to depict a less well-known moment in the lovers’ story recounted in Da Porto’s novel: the moment when Juliet bids farewell to her nurse with a last kiss, just before drinking the fatal elixir that ends her young life.

Two versions of this subject are known. The first one had been published in Nicodemi’s monograph of 1962 but it was Ferdinando Mazzocca who recognized the subject in his catalogue raisonné (see Mazzocca, 1994, no. 69, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 61.6 cm). In 2002, Mazzoca discovered the present work in a private collection, and noted that it should be considered a preliminary study for the version on canvas.

The relationship between the present painting and The Last Kiss is evident in Hayez’s use of the same model, Carolina Zucchi, the artist’s long-time paramour, for the figure of Juliet. Hayez chose to depict her with great naturalism and a high degree of sensuality, yet another departure from the cool classicism predominant in the era preceding his own.

It is often remarked that often written that Hayez was the painter of the kisses, from The Last Kiss of his early years to the three versions of his most celebrated Kiss of around 1859. Indeed, these rank among his most famous works, and the most iconic images of kisses made in the nineteenth century. The frank sensuality with which he imbued these images—as is certainly the case in the present work with its intimate dimensions and close cropping around the two women’s faces—is reminiscent of Canova, whose Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (1793, Musée du Louvre, Paris) must have offered Hayez an apt model for his own evocative images of kissing.

A certificate attesting to the attribution of this work by Ferdinando Mazzocca accompanies this work. 

Fig. 1 Francesco Hayez, The Marriage of Romeo and Juliet, Graf Von Schönborn Kunstsammlungen, Pommersfelden.

Fig. 2. Francesco Hayez, The Last Kiss of Romeo and Juliet, Villa Carlotta, Tremezzo.

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