John Opie

John Opie was a significant contributor to the elevation of genre painting in England at the end of the eighteenth century. La Fille mal gardee, also known as The Fugitive, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800 and is Opie's largest known genre painting. The story is from a ballet of the same name first performed in France in 1789. The setting is the farm of a wealthy widow, whose daughter Lise, against her mother's wishes, is in love with the farmer Colas. The widow contrives to marry her daughter off to the son of the wealthy landowner, Thomas. Opie portrays the dramatic moment in Act II when Colas tries to convince Lise to elope with him while the widow sleeps at her spinning wheel. In the end the widow forgives the young lovers and blesses their marriage. The moral message of the libretto, love conquers all, originates in classical literature. Set in a rural context, it reveals the tendency common in the late eighteenth century to find moral lessons in the more "natural" life of simple country folk.