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Scene showing two young lovers meeting by a wooden stile in an English rural landscape, illustrating a poem by Thomas Hood, which was entitled 'Ballad' (1827). The young girl is seated on the near side of the stile; she is seen in profile to the left. An older youth straddles the stile and leans forward to gaze down at the girl. Both hands of each figure are clasped in the hands of the other, each gazing intensely into the eyes of their loved one. The girl has shoulder-length fair hair. She wears a mauve dress over a white petticoat and a straw hat slung round her neck on a pink ribbon. The youth is depicted in the clothes of a farmer: a flat cap with a ring of curls escaping from under it and a jacket worn with a red neckerchief. To the right of the stile, entwined in the hedgerow, are a Dog Rose (Eglantine) in bloom and Honeysuckle; to the left is Vetch.
Title
Early Lovers
Date
1858
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 76.4 x W 46.1 cm
Accession number
1903.7
Acquisition method
purchased at Christie's, 1903
Work type
Painting
Inscription description
Signed and dated at right bottom corner: Smallfield / 1858
