Haydee discovering the body of Don Juan

This 1873 painting on wood takes its subject from Byron's epic poem 'Don Juan' (1819–24), depicting the moment when Haidee, a Greek girl who has sheltered the shipwrecked Don Juan, discovers his apparent death after her father has had him recaptured. Brown's engagement with Byron as a literary source places him within a tradition of Romantic painting that treated the poet's work as material for morally and emotionally intense composition. The Musée d'Orsay's collection of this work represents an important cross-Channel dimension of Pre-Raphaelite reception, as French institutions and collectors took sustained interest in the British movement throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Brown's treatment of the subject emphasizes Haidee's grief and the pathos of a love destroyed by paternal authority — themes with obvious resonance in his broader social and moral concerns.

The wood panel support gives this relatively intimate work a specific physical character and allows a degree of surface finish different from canvas. Brown's handling of the female figure in extremis — the posture and expression of discovering a loved one apparently dead — required careful orchestration of pose and facial expression to convey the emotional crisis without theatrical exaggeration. The light in the scene illuminates Haidee's discovery while keeping Don Juan's form in comparative shadow.