Titania asleep 'There sleeps Titania some time of the night Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight'A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I.

Huskisson is regarded as one of the major exponents of Victorian fairy painting, and most of these pictures take their subjects from A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest. The present work is no exception and is also typical in owing an obvious debt to the stage. The action is seen through a painted arch reminiscent of a proscenium arch in a theatre, with symbolic figures painted in monochrome on the lateral pilasters in a manner still found in some theatres built or refurbished during the Victorian era. As for the figures ('actors' might be a better word), they seem to be caught in the gaslight or limelight that revolutionised the early Victorian theatre, and were never more effectively employed than in the ballets and pantomimes in which fairies so often played a central role. We might be watching one of the so-called 'transformation scenes' which still conclude traditional pantomimes, in which all the resources of theatrical artistry combine to elicit gasps of wonder and delight from the audience.

The picture is a version of one now in the Tate, The Midsummer Night's Fairies, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847. It belonged to Samuel Carter Hall, the owner and editor of the Art Union, later the Art Journal and was later in the collection of Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read. The two versions are approximately the same size, and almost identical in detail. An engraving after the S.C. Hall version was published by the Art-Union in 1848 (facing p. 306), with the following enthusiastic account:

'This little picture is wonderful in every part; there is not a portion of it which has not been studied and painted with a truth and delicacy inimitable: in conception it is truly original, and in execution admirable. The work was hung most advantageously at the Royal Academy, and attracted very great attention, in as much as the name of the painter was heretofore comparatively unknown. As we anticipated, however, it brought him numerous commissions, and we shall be greatly mistaken if we do not find him, ere long, occupying a distinguished place among the leading artists of our time.'

No doubt it was the enthusiastic reception of the picture at the Academy of 1847, and its subsequent promotion in the Art Union that encouraged Huskisson to make a second version. Our picture can hardly be more than a year later than the original. Hall clearly did much to promote Huskisson's career and was one of his most important patrons. In 1848 Hall acquired Huskisson's Come unto these yellow sands, 1848 (fig. 1), which features the same proscenium arch and takes its inspiration from another Shakespearean play, The Tempest.