Scene from Mr Wallace's Opera "The Desert Flower" at Covent Garden

Scene from Mr Wallace's Opera "The Desert Flower" at Covent Garden. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 31 October 1863.

A scene from Act II, Scene 1 of William Vincent Wallace's "The Desert Flower" The original description reads:

Our Engraving represents the situation - act ii. scene 1 - in Mr. Wallace's new opera, "The Desert Flower," in which Captain Maurice (Mr. Harrison) first addresses Oanita (Miss Louisa Pyne) as a lover. He is singing the beautiful ballad "Though Born in Woods, rude Nature's Child," [sic] while she, listening with surprise and emotion, is saying to herself, "None of my own tribe ever spoke to me thus!" The forest scenery is one of the happiest efforts of Mr. Grieve's pencil.

Mr. Grieve is probably what is called the scene-painter (though they actually also handled stage design).

Author: M. Jackson (see lower left-hand corner, just below the reeds.)