Description

Thew, Robert. Fanny Kemble (Butler) as Isabella, “Merciful Heaven!” New York: Johnson, Fry & Co., 1859. Engraving by Robert Thew of Fanny Kemble Butler in costume as Isabella in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. The sheet measures 10 in x 7 ¼ in, with a vignette-decorated border of scenes from the play around an oval image, showing Frances Anne “Fanny” Kemble Butler (1809-1893) in a full-figure pose. Once an illustration in a book, now disbound, with original tissue guard still attached, now torn. Slight chipping of the upper right-hand corner of the sheet, with no image loss.

Fanny Kemble retired from the stage to marry Pierce Mease Butler in 1834. The couple divorced in 1849, following a protracted court battle and the publication of Fanny’s diary about the treatment of slaves on the plantations of her husband’s vast slaveholdings, Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839.

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