Woman’s Mission: Comfort of Old Age

George Elgar Hicks (1824-1914)

1862

Oil on canvas

762 x 638 mm

Courtesy of Tate Britain T14037. Purchased 2014

This painting makes up one scene in a triptych (three-part picture) called Woman’s Mission which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1863. The missing sections are Guide of Childhood and Guide of Manhood (plate). As a group the pictures represent the same woman in her role as mother, wife and attentive daughter or, as one critic of the time put it: ‘woman in three phases of her duties as ministering angel’. The woman in both pictures bears a striking resemblance to the artist’s depictions of his own wife, Maria.

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