Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm is an oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1832. Etty had been planning the painting since 1818–19, and an early versio
Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm, 1832, 158.7 by 117.5 cm (62.5 by 46.3 in)
The Dawn of Love (1828) was intended to illustrate John Milton's Comus. By the end of the 1820s, Etty had become notorious for his use of literary and mythological subjects as a pretext for nudity.
William Blake's treatment (c. 1798) of the same passage from The Bard. Gray's poem was a popular theme for artists.
Three Female Nudes, attributed to Etty c. 1820, is possibly either a study for or derived from Youth and Pleasure, but may be a study for an unrelated work.
The Bard (poem)
Videos
The Bard. A Pindaric Ode is a poem by Thomas Gray, set at the time of Edward I's conquest of Wales. Inspired partly by his research into medieval history and literature, partly by his discovery of Wel
Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm
…had been planning the painting since 1818–19, and an early version was exhibited in 1822. The piece was inspired by a metaphor in Thomas Gray's poem The Bard in which the apparently bright start to the notorious misrule of Richard II of England was compared to a gilded ship whose occupants are unaware of an…
Title-page of The Bard illustrated by William Blake, c. 1798
The Bard (1774) by Thomas Jones, National Museum Cardiff
The Bard (c. 1817) by John Martin, Yale Center for British Art