The Convent Boat by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915). c. 1873-74. Oil on canvas. 37 x 61 inches (94 x 155 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Christie's © 1992 Christie's Images Limited (right click disabled; not to be downloaded).
Hughes must have been fond of this composition because it exists in two versions dating from c. 1874 as well as a later sketch dating to c.1880 or the early 1890s. Hughes exhibited the principal version at the Royal Academy in 1874, no. 584, and this was later included in the British section at the International (Centennial) Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, no. 76. This version was purchased in 1874 by George Trist.
The Convent Boat. c. 1874. Oil on canvas. 17½ x 28½ inches (44.5 x 72.5 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Dreweatts. [Click on this image to enlarge it.]
The reduced version is similar to the principal version although it differs slightly in its palette, including the colours found in the historical costumes of the various individuals, and the smaller version has slightly fewer people included. The nun poling at the back of the convent boat is absent as is the female figure holding a child in her arms in the distant right midground. Scott Thomas Buckle, in a personal communication, has pointed out that the figure of the nun at the far left of the boat in the primary version of the painting resembles depictions of the grim reaper. This faceless figure, like Charon, the Stygian boatman, conveys the young novice away from her family to a form of afterlife. The figure’s omission from the reduced version may have been an attempt to make the composition appear less ominous.
When the reduced version came up for sale at Dreweatts in 2024 their cataloguer described the scene depicted thus:
This work shows the emotional moment in which a young novice leaves her family for the convent. The ramifications of her decision are laid bare for the viewer. Dressed as a bride of Christ, the novice's austere clothing contrasts with the sumptuous garb of those standing on the river bank. While her family lament her departure, she holds a prayer book and looks away solemnly, appearing resolute in her choice. The deliberate negation of material wealth and familial or romantic ties was a recurrent theme in artistic and literary depictions of nuns. The works reveal a curiosity with autonomous female spaces and the eschewal of the secular world in favour of an interior, spiritual life. Indeed, we only see a small glimpse of the cloister she will be entering. The work invokes a harmonious vision of the pre-Reformation world. Soft evening light descends over the trees and reflects serenely across the water. The convent walls, overgrown with dense ivy, suggest the institution's agedness, connecting it with England's spiritual heritage. [112]
When the principal version sold at Christie's in 1992 John Christian noted its similarity to works by French symbolist artists:
During the 1870s Hughes painted a series of pictures in which figures in historical costumes are seen in emotionally charged situations in woodland settings. Though freer in handling than his earlier work, they show no loss of poetic invention or skill in capturing moods of nostalgia and sadness. In the present example a family – mother, sister, brother, lover – are seen taking leave of a girl who is entering a convent. The sense of loss inherent in the subject and the feeling of melancholy evoked by the fading light and autumnal landscape add up to an effect which has parallels in French Symbolism, and it is perhaps not surprising that the picture was twice discussed by the critic Ernest Chesneau. [92]
Chesneau was a French art historian and critic who was interested in contemporary English art and in 1864 had published the book L' Art et les artistes modernes en France et en Angleterre. He subsequently published additional information on English painters. In a letter to Chesneau Hughes had identified The Convent Boat as one of his best works.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
The critic of The Art Journal signalled this work out for particular praise:
But the most noticeable work on this side of the room is the Convent Boat (584), by Arthur Hughes. It is some time since the painter has employed his close and studious knowledge of nature with such a good effect. We feel in this view of placid water, illuminated by the quiet light of evening, and bound on its furthest side by an aged wall overgrown with ivy, the double fascination of a scene that belongs both to the present and the past. Through an archway in the wall, there is a vision of a trimly-kept lawn, and in the boat that is just pushing off from the shore, sits a young novice, who takes the last leave of her friends. In a place that, by its age and romantic growth, suggests a past time, Mr. Hughes has aptly enough added incidents which also recall an earlier mode of life. The quaint costume and the figures of the nuns prepared to paddle the boat across the stream, recall the earlier history of a spot of which the picturesque qualities of landscape survive to the present day. [227]
The Academy found this a highly poetical conception: "Mr. A. Hughes Convent Boat (584). Mr. Hughes rarely fails in a delicate and truly poetical conception of his work; and this picture (so far as its position enables me to judge) is also rendered with much feelings and truth to natural tone. The composition has that unstudied air which one notices also in Mr. Hook's [James Clarke Hook] figures; the background is unusually successful" (554). The reviewer for The Illustrated London News found much to be appreciated in the sentiment and beauty displayed in this picture: "Sentiment less masculine but true and tender, combined with an exquisitely delicate sense of beauty, will be found in No. 584, by Mr. A Hughes – 'black stoled and hooded' nuns in a boat conveying a fair girl, in the white robes of her noviciate, across a stream to a convent seclusion almost hidden amongst thick foliage – bearing her away from a sorrowing mother, a sister, and a noble-looking young man attending on the foreground bank" (470).
F.G. Stephens in The Athenaeum reviewed the picture twice, the first and more extensive review was prior to its exhibition at the Royal Academy: "Mr. A. Hughes has made considerable progress with a picture of unusual interest, the subject being the parting of a young lady with her friends before entering a convent. The scene is on the banks of a river with the convent on the side removed from us; she has entered a boat, and is about to be ferried over the stream. Her family, including a, favourite little brother, are taking their last look at the intended nun. The landscape, which has been charmingly painted from nature, adds greatly to the interest of the picture" (233).
Bibliography
Amory, Mark, Ed. The Letters of Evelyn Waugh. New Haven: Ticknor and Fields, 1980. 606.
Chesneau, Ernest. La Peinture Anglais. Paris: A. Quantin, 1882. 201.
Chesneau, Ernest. "Peintures Anglais Contemporains." L'Art II (1894): 399.
Christian, John. Fine Victorian Pictures, Drawings and Watercolours. London: Christie's (13 November 1992): lot 122, 122-23.
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LXIV (16 May 1874): 470.
Old Master, British and European Art. Newbury: Dreweatts (9 October 2024): lot 137, 112-13. https://auctions.dreweatts.com/past-auctions/drewea1-10487/lot-details/87e2929e-31ef-4df0-9910-b1e800e02de6
Roberts, Len. Arthur Hughes His Life and Works. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1997, cat. 131, 184 and cat. 131.3. 184.
"Royal Academy Exhibition." The Academy V (16 May 1874): 554-55.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Art Gossip." The Athenaeum No. 2416 (14 February 1874): 233.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series XIII (August 1874): 225-29.
Created 14 March 2025