Disappointed Love

In today's painting we see a young woman who has torn up a letter (presumably a love letter) and thrown it into a stream. Her face is buried in her hands, her hair is hanging carelessly over her knees. Other letters, not yet destroyed, lie beside her on a wallet with an open locket containing a miniature of her beloved. Soon perhaps she will cast herself too into the still waters and, like Ophelia, sing as she drowns.

Francis Danby was an Irish painter of the Romantic era. Danby initially developed his imaginative style while he was the central figure in a group of artists who have come to be known as the Bristol School. His period of greatest success was in London in the 1820s.