From my Window

Frederick Sandys

1861

Wood engraving by Joseph Swain

5 x 3¼ inches

Illustration for Once a Week (24 August 1861), p.238.

A particularly dreamy image showing a young woman waiting for the arrival of her beloved, a favourite situation and one found throughout Victorian art. This illustration is another of the artist’s monumental female figures, combining heavy modelling – based on German prototypes provided by Schnorr von Carolsfeld – and intricate detail. The illustration is also interesting as a prime example of the sort of careful drawing demanded by the magazine’s editor, Samuel Lucas. Lucas published Sandys’s design after he had rejected another version of the poem by George du Maurier, turning it down because he considered it insufficiently realistic.

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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