Pale Margaret, by Albert Joseph Moore, ARWS 1841-1893. 1886. Oil on canvas. 13 x 10 inches (33 x 25.4 cm). Whereabouts unknown. Image source: The Magazine of Art XVII (1894): 362.
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
Moore exhibited Pale Margaret at the Royal Academy in 1886, no. 1081. A.L. Baldry has described this work as a "study of a girl's face, a three-quarter view. She has a white frill around her neck, and her dark brown hair falls in ringlets over her shoulders" (60). Moore employed the same model for his Edelweiss, exhibited that same year at the Grosvenor Gallery. The title Pale Margaret suggests that this is a rare example of Moore's choosing a title from a poem by Alfred Tennyson. The poem of 1833 opens with the lines:
"O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
Pale Margaret was not extensively reviewed, with most of the attention of the critics being devoted to Moore's more important exhibit, Silver. Robert Walker in the Magazine of Art described it showing "a beautiful head, with hair crisply and deftly painted" (367); but F.G. Stephens in the Athenaeum merely saw it as the "counterpart of his picture at the Grosvenor Gallery," feeling that "the same criticism applies to it" (785).
Image capture by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and the University of Toronto Library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Baldry, Alfred Lys. Albert Moore. His Life and Works. London: George Bell and Sons, 1893. 60.
Stephens, Frederic George: "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The AthenaeumNo. 3059 (12 June 1886): 784-86.
Walker, Robert. "Private Picture Collections in Glasgow and West of Scotland: Mr. William Connal's Collection of works by Albert Moore." Magazine of Art. 17 (December 1893-November 1894): 360-66. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 7 September 2013.
Created 7 September 2013
Last modified 3 October 2026