'Conscience makes cowards of us all', Study for 'Conscience'

This study for Conscience, with its title quoting Hamlet's observation that 'conscience does make cowards of us all', is held by the Whitworth Art Gallery and gives rare insight into Rivière's preparatory process for one of his most psychologically searching subjects. The finished painting Conscience (1894) depicted a man unable to face his dog's guileless gaze after some unspecified wrongdoing, using animal innocence to dramatize human moral failure without explicit narrative. The Whitworth study, which explores the compositional and tonal relationships before final execution, documents the careful thinking behind what appears, in the finished version, to be effortless simplicity.

As a preparatory study, the canvas is likely more loosely handled than the finished Conscience, with tonal masses blocked in broadly and figure relationships established at the expense of surface detail. The key compositional elements — the man's averted or downcast pose, the dog's upward gaze — would already be in place to test their psychological effectiveness.