Study for Decameron

Study for Decameron, painted in 1916, relates to Waterhouse's engagement with Boccaccio's fourteenth-century collection of tales in which a group of young Florentines retreat to the countryside during the Black Death and entertain each other with stories. Waterhouse explored the Decameron setting most fully in The Enchanted Garden (also 1916), which drew on a specific Boccaccio tale of a magical garden. This study may be a preliminary exploration of figure placement, costume, or compositional arrangement for that painting or for a related Decameron subject. Studies produced alongside the ambitious late Enchanted Garden canvas give us insight into the variety of approaches Waterhouse was simultaneously pursuing in what would prove to be the final year of his creative life.

As a study, the handling is open and exploratory, with figure placement and costume tested in advance of any fully finished canvas. The palette may establish the warm, golden Mediterranean light of the Decameron's Florentine countryside setting. Figures are loosely posed, and backgrounds are suggested rather than developed.