Una and the Lion

William Bell Scott

1860

Oil on canvas

36 x 28 inches (91.5 x 71.2 cm).

Collection of the National Gallery of Scotland, accession no. NG2367. Creative Commons CC by NC.

This painting was inspired by Edmund Spenser’s sixteenth-century poem The Faerie Queen. Una is the good and beautiful young daughter of a king and queen who have shut themselves up in tower for protection from a ferocious dragon who has taken over their kingdom. Many brave knights fought the dragon to try to save the king and queen but all perished. Una undertakes a quest to free her parents by riding to Fairyland and asking the Queen of the Fairies to send one of her knights to slay the dragon. On her journey she encounters a fierce lion that is so captivated by Una’s innocence and beauty that he abandons his plan to devour her, and instead vows to become her protector and companion. In Scott painting he portrays Una gently resting the fingers of her right hand in the lion’s mane, as they make their way through the autumnal wood together.

When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1860 it received faint praise from the critic of The Athenaeum, likely F. G. Stephens: “We expected a much better picture from Mr. W. B. Scott than Una and the Lion (474). A very small Una, whose mild, not to say inane, look would astonish Spenser, leads a very large lion. The beast’s mane is in a state of permanent erection, so that he looks more like a magnified porcupine with ‘fretful quills’ than fair Una’s ‘unruly page.’ The whole work is faint, crude, and weak in colour – needs grandeur and dignity of both maid and beast.” (Athenaeum, No. 1699, (May 19, 1860): 689). Scott returned to the picture much later in life when he retouched various parts, including Una’s face and dress, perhaps prompted in part by the earlier criticism. — Dennis T. Lanigan