Giaffier and Zuleika



This figure portrays a highlight in Act I Scene 3 of William Dimond’s dramatised version of Byron’s poem “The Bride of Abydos”. Mr Barton and Miss Rosa Henry are the actors, and the production was probably that at Astley’s Ampitheatre in London, in April 1847.
The figure is circa 1847 and 12.75 inches high and can be found in Pugh, page E379, figure 60.



Who were Giaffier and Zuleika?
In Byron’s poem, Giaffier was a cruel and ruthless ruler in Turkey. His beautiful daughter Zuleika falls in love with Selim, a man adopted by her father as his own son. Selim reveals to Zuleika that his whole family were killed by Giaffier, vowing to revenge them and marry Zuleika. Disguised as a pirate, he ambushes Giaffier but is attacked by the ruler’s men. Selim tries to reach Zuleika, who is waiting for him in a secret location, but he dies on the beach, the fatal blow struck by Giaffier himself. When she hears of this, Zuleika dies of sorrow, leaving Giaffier to live out the rest of his life in solitude and unhappiness.
Dimond found Byron’s ending too gloomy and catastrophic so used a different scene from another of Byron’s poems!
More Figures of the month


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King of Sardinia
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