Mary Walker Waugh
William Holman Hunt (British, 1827–1910)
1868
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 115.5 x 95.5 x 6 cm (45 1/2 x 37 5/8 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 86.2 x 66.1 cm (33 15/16 x 26 in.)
- Culture
- England, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
William Holman Hunt painted this portrait of Mary Walker Waugh (1805–1886)—his mother-in-law—during a time of personal tragedy. Waugh’s daughter Fanny Waugh Hunt (1832–1866), the wife of the artist, had recently died following childbirth. References to loss of life infiltrate the composition: the sitter wears black mourning attire, and behind her is a screen decorated with red poppies, a traditional symbol of unconsciousness and lifelessness because of its pharmaceutical use as a source for opiates. In Victorian society, the red poppy also signified consolation.
