Editing Joseph Severn (section)

== Paintings ==

Severn is best known for his many portraits of Keats, the most famous being the miniature portrait in [[The Fitzwilliam Museum]] (1819), the pen-and-ink sketch, ''Keats on his Deathbed'' (1821), in the [[Keats-Shelley house]], Rome, and the oil painting of the poet reading, ''John Keats at Wentworth Place'' (1821–23), in the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]]. A later painting, ''Keats, at Hampstead, when he first imagined his Ode to a Nightingale'' (1849), now at [[Keats House]], is also notable. In the 1860s Severn produced a number of copies and memory portraits as Keats' reputation continued to grow. The most influential of Severn's early Italian genre paintings are ''The Vintage'', commissioned by the Duke of Bedford in 1825, and ''The Fountain'' (Royal Palace, Brussels) commissioned by [[Leopold I of Belgium]] in 1826. The latter picture probably influenced [[J. M. W. Turner]]'s major work, ''[[View of Orvieto]]''.<ref>Powell 1987, p. 142</ref> One of his most remarkably inventive works is the ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (1839), based on [[Samuel Coleridge]]'s famous poem, which recently sold at Sotheby's for £32,400. Another historical subject, ''The Abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots'', sold for £115,250 at Sotheby's Gleneagles sale on 26 August 2008.<ref>Scott, "New Severn Letters and Paintings", p. 137</ref>

Severn also painted such works as ''[[Cordelia]] Watching by the Bed of [[King Lear|Lear]]'', ''Shepherds in the Campagna'', ''Shelley Composing Prometheus Unbound'', ''Isabella and the Pot of Basil'', ''Portia with the Casket'', ''Ariel'', ''[[Cola di Rienzi|Rienzi]]'', ''The Infant of the Apocalypse Saved from the Dragon'', a large altarpiece for the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura at Rome, and many portraits of statesman and aristocrats, including [[Robert Wilhelm Bunsen|Baron Bunsen]] and [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]]. The last picture he exhibited at the Royal Academy was a scene from [[Oliver Goldsmith]]'s ''[[The Deserted Village]]'' in 1857.