Alonso, King of Naples and Another Figure (fragment of 'The Tempest Act I, Scene 1')

This canvas, described as a fragment of a larger composition depicting a scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest, preserves only the figures of Alonso, King of Naples, and another character from Act I. George Romney made numerous drawings and oil sketches after Shakespeare, particularly focusing on The Tempest and works associated with the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery project. Romney never fully resolved his ambitions in literary and historical painting — he remained primarily a portraitist — but his Shakespearean subjects document a sustained creative aspiration beyond the portrait studio. The Bolton Museum holding reflects the dispersal of Romney's non-portrait work into provincial collections. The fragment's partial state raises questions about its history: it may have been cut from a larger canvas or may represent an unfinished section of a larger project. Either possibility contributes to its interest as a document of Romney's working process.

The fragmentary nature of the composition affects how its technique can be assessed — we see only a portion of what was originally a broader pictorial statement. The handling of the surviving figures likely shows Romney's characteristic approach to literary subjects: more freely painted than his commissioned portraits, with greater emphasis on dramatic expression over careful description. The compositional fragment raises questions about what the full work would have conveyed.