‘Milton Visiting Galileo in the Prisons of the Inquisition’ by Eyre Crowe (1859)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1859
Original caption: ‘There it was that I visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking of astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought.’
‘Galileo’s daughters, who were nuns in a convent close by Galileo’s prison, tended him during his incarceration; and the eldest, who was his favourite, read seven penitential psalms, a recitation which formed part of Galileo’s sentence.’
This painting was chosen by a London Art Union prizewinner and purchased from the Royal Academy for 63 guineas (Daily News, 28 May 1859)
Daily News, 5 May 1859
Mr. E. Crowe has chosen an excellent subject in “Milton visiting Galileo in the Prisons of the Inquisition” (569), and has treated it with intelligence and feeling.
Athenaeum, 21 May 1859:
Mr Crowe’s Milton visiting Galileo in the Prisons of the Inquisition (569) is very cold in painting and silly in conception. The old gentleman on his shavings could not have discovered anything, not even a needle in a bottle of hay; the nun daughters are caricatures and Milton looks a dolt…
The Times, 18 May 1859:
Mr Crowe’s Milton visiting Galileo is carefully painted – almost too carefully. It is not well in the presence of the great Florentine to be so conscious of the velvet of his trunks and the Indian corn husks he rests upon. But there is praiseworthy conscientiousness in every part of the picture.
Art Journal, 1859, p. 170:
This is an admirable subject, but it is materially damaged by the way the background material is painted up. Galileo is stretched upon a couch of dried sedges, tended by his two daughters, who were nuns in a convent prison; but Milton sits at the door, as if he was not of the party – an arrangement which disintegrates the composition. As well as can be seen, the figures are most carefully drawn and painted.
National Magazine, vol 6, iss 33, July 1859, p.164:
“Milton visiting Galileo in Prison” (569), by the above artist, is a capital rendering of an excellent subject.
Art Journal, September 1859:
[Reporting the Art-Union show of prizes in Suffolk Street including Eyre Crowe’s Milton visiting Galileo in the Prisons of the Inquisition], a work of some pretension, but not without certain of the faults of the hard school of painting.
Art Journal, June 1864:
There is much careful and excellent work in this picture, and a novelty in the arrangement of the figures that is highly to be commended.
Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) 