Sleep and his Half-brother Death

Date created: 1874

J.A. Blaikie gave a brief critique of this painting in 'The Magazine of Art' (1886):

"The two figures recline side by side on a low couch, beyond which are the columns of a colonnade open to the night and touched with moonlight. The interior is lit by a lamp, whose light streams on the foremost figure, Sleep, whose head hangs in heavy stupor on his breast, and his right hand grasps some poppies. By his side lies Death in dusky shadow, with head thrown back, and the lines of the figure expressive of easeful lassitude. At his feet is an antique lyre, while immediately in the foreground is a low round table. The two figures are both young, and the beauty of youth belongs to one as much as to the other, the strange likeness and unlikeness of the recumbent figures."