In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- George John Pinwell 1842–1875
- Medium
- Wood engraving on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 159 x 127 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Gilbert Dalziel 1924
- Reference
- N04023
Display caption
This is one of eighteen designs Pinwell made for a book of verse called Wayside Posies. The haunting image shows a woman staring at her reflection in a pond. Beside her sit two women whose skirts seem to have been absorbed by the landscape. All three women appear displaced from everyday time and place, their faces downcast.
The anonymous poem Shadow and Substance which accompanies this design is narrated by a suitor who, if his passion is rejected by ‘Nell’, threatens to commit ‘sweet slaughter’ by drowning himself while ‘embracing her shade in the water’ where she fishes.
Gallery label, November 2004
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