Skip to main content

Othello and Desdemona, by William Powell Frith

Image attached to 498

An image of Othello and Desdomona (1856). Frith, William Powell (British, 1819-1909). Oil on canvas, height 55.9 cm, width 48.3 cm, 1840-1856. Notes: One of Frith's earliest subject-pictures, dating from 1840, which he states he subsequently much reduced in size and repainted, evidently in 1856, shortening the legs of the figures in the process.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

About this image

Othello and Desdomona (1856). Frith, William Powell (British, 1819-1909). Oil on canvas, height 55.9 cm, width 48.3 cm, 1840-1856. Notes: One of Frith's earliest subject-pictures, dating from 1840, which he states he subsequently much reduced in size and repainted, evidently in 1856, shortening the legs of the figures in the process.

Image data

  • Accession Number: 498
  • Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
  • Aperture: f/19.0
  • Focal length: 120
  • Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
  • Photographer name: Andrew Norman
  • Image height: 1025 pixels
  • Image width: 883 pixels
  • Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
  • Filesize: 790.14kB
  • Exposure time: 1/125
  • ISO Speed: 200
  • Fnumber: 19/1
  • Captured: 2012:09:03 14:42:04

Key words

19th Century characters columns Desdemona female Fitz_PDP Frith literary literary figures literature male Moor Moorish oil on canvas Othello painting plays seated Shakespeare Shakespearian sitting Venetian William Powell Frith

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2026) "Othello and Desdemona, by William Powell Frith" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-3689547264 Accessed: 2026-01-14 18:52:10

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-3689547264 |title=Othello and Desdemona, by William Powell Frith |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2026-01-14 18:52:10|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-218081

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/pdp/pdp82/498_2_201209_adn21_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Othello and Desdemona (1856)"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Othello and Desdemona, by William Powell Frith</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>
    

Sign up for updates

Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...