Shylock and Jessica

This painting from 1876 is by Maurycy Gottlieb, a Polish-Jewish realist painter of the Romantic period. This sympathetic portrayal of Shylock, one of the characters of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice came after the move toward playing him sympathetically on stage, which likely began with Edmund Kean in the 1810’s. In the early 20th century, Jacob Adler would play the role of Shylock in Yiddish in an otherwise English language production. Gottlieb won a gold medal at the Munich art competition for this piece. The painting was widely acclaimed when it was exhibited in Lviv in 1877, and in 1878 at Zachęta in Warsaw. Gottlieb based Jessica's face on that of Laura Rosenfeld, to whom he had proposed marriage. However, Laura rejected his proposal and wed a Berlin banker. Gottlieb then planned to marry Lola Rosengarten. But when he heard about Rosenfeld's marriage he knowingly exposed himself to the elements, dying of complications from a cold at the age of 23. Moshe, thanks for the inspiration!