Artwork Information

Queen. My Oberon! What visions have I seen

Methought I was enamoured of an ass

Oberon. There lies your love

Queen. How came these things to pass?

O, How mine eyes do loath his visage now!

Oberon casts a spell on Titania, so that she falls in love with the first person she sees on awakening, which happens to be Bottom the Weaver wearing an asses' head. When Oberon lifts the spell, order is restored once more. Shakespeare took the name of Titania from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the theme of transformation is central to the play. Texts that described the world of fairies or spirits were a rich source for many eighteenth artists wishing to depict fantastical creatures, not least when pictorialising the irrational world of dreams. Scenes such as these serve as important precursers to psychology's explorations of the unconscious mind in the 20th century. (Monsters and Maidens, 2004)