Curatorial notes
Edwin Austin Abbey made this study for a Wandering Minstrel using watercolor and gouache. The figure and costumes suggest it was for a theatrical production. Abbey was an American artist working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He spent much of his career in England, illustrating the works of Shakespeare and other writers, who were popular in that time. The minstrel figure here draws from the romanticized medieval past that was being rediscovered and reimagined in the Victorian era. Historical sources, such as costume books, set designs, and playbills, would help us understand how Abbey's image relates to the theater productions of his time. These types of sources give the historian insight into the social and institutional contexts that shaped artistic production.