Love and Time. Oil on canvas. 14 3/8 x 38 inches (36.5 x 96.5 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Christie's, London, and not to be reproduced; the right click has been disabled.
This painting is undated and unfortunately Strudwick did not exhibit it at either of his usual London venues, the Grosvenor Gallery or the New Gallery. It features Strudwick's favourite themes of love and the passage of time. Love, in an olive-green gown, is seated on a carved white marble throne seemingly entranced by the music Cupid is playing on a horn, similar to the one played by Love in Strudwick's earlier painting Love's Music of 1878. Cupid wears a crown of roses, reminiscent of those seen in works by his mentor Edward Burne-Jones, such as his unfinished picture of Blind Love that was offered for sale at Christie's, London, on 25 June 1998, lot 321. A winged figure of Time with his scythe, shown as a still relatively young man rather than an old man with a beard, is seated and looking intently at Love. In the midground is a white marble arcaded wall with carved panels derived from Strudwick's Passing Days, the initial version of which was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878 and a larger version was shown much later at the New Gallery in 1904. Passing Days was an allegory of time and mortality, representing the days of a man's life passing in procession in front of him. Behind the wall is a clump of trees, primarily cypress trees. The cypress tree was sacred to the Fates and Furies as well as to Hades, the ruler of the underworld. It symbolized the transition between life and death and the possibility of eternal life so it may have been included for symbolic and not merely decorative purposes. In the background is an Italianate landscape, which Strudwick never knew first hand as he had never visited Italy. It closely resembles landscapes by members of the Etruscan School — works such as Frederic Leighton's River Landscape [The River Tiber, near Acquacetosa], or John Collingham Moore's On the River Tiber, near Acquacetosa. The landscape with the meandering river is also reminiscent of the backgrounds in paintings by the Italian Renaissance painter Antonio del Pollaiuolo.
This painting was owned initially by the Brighton collector Henry Hill, who had made his fortune as a military taylor and outfitter.
Bibliography
Important 19th Century Pictures and Continental Watercolours. London: Christie's (November 25, 1988): lot 117.
Kolsteren, Steven. "The Pre-Raphaelite Art of John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937)." The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Studies I: 2 (Fall 1988): 12, no. 38.
Created 5 October 2025