Maria Malibran as Desdemona is an 1830 portrait painting by the Belgian artist Henri Decaisne depicting the Spanish singer Maria Malibran.Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution, 1760–1830. Royal Academy of Arts, 2007. p.44 Malibran is depicted in the role of Desdemona from Gioachino Rossini's opera Otello, itself based on William Shakespeare's play of the same title.FitzLyon p.265
Decaisne was one of several French-based portraitists strongly influenced by the work of Thomas Lawrence in the 1820s. He submitted this work to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1830 at Somerset House. It was also exhibited at the Salon of 1831 at the Louvre.Bann & Noon p.190 Today it is in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, having been acquired in 1924.
References
Bibliography FitzLyon, April. Maria Malibran: Diva of the Romantic Age. Souvenir Press, 1987. Noon, Patrick & Bann, Stephen. Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics. Tate, 2003.