3-011-821 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Saved", by F. W. Topham, in the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1864. Engraving. 'We must sympathise with the terror through which these humble Irish folk have passed, and with the agony of suspense which has wrung that young mother's heart, as well as the indescribable joy with which...she now raises her hands and eyes to Heaven...[Mr. Topham] intimates - notwithstanding that there appear to be no evidences of consciousness in the pallid face of the poor child just dragged from the water - that he is restored to life. This intimation is... conveyed...by the ecstasy of gratitude with which the mother pours out her thanks to Heaven...Judging from the black hair and blue-grey eyes of the young mother, we should say she is one of the witching beauties of the Claddagh, and we should place the site of the pier in Galway Bay...[Her] apparent youthfulness...favours our assumption, for the Claddagh girls are notorious for marrying early; and, as a natural consequence, they look aged at an earlier period than women of less precocious temperaments - a remark that, in all likelihood, applies to the greyhaired crone in this picture, the mother, probably, of the young woman'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.