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A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play by William Shakespeare, probably written between 1590 and 1596, about events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. This scene shows two victims of mischievous fairies: the fairy queen Titania and the human weaver Bottom. She is smitten with him due to Oberon's love potion, while his head was changed to an ass's by Puck.
This Edwin Landseer painting, Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel to hang on his dining room wall as part of a series of Shakespeare-themed works. The painting, its subject likely selected by Landseer for its close ties to animals, was popular from its first exhibition; the future Queen Victoria described it as "a gem, beautifully fairy-like and graceful".Painting: Edwin Landseer