3-011-945 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Ruth", by A. Johnston, from the exhibition of the British Institution, 1864. Engraving of a painting. 'The colouring of this picture is extremely vivid and effective; moreover, the beauty of the "subject" is of a highly attractive kind...In regard to this "Ruth" some might ask for a more Oriental physiognomy (according to modern notions), while others might prefer this more familiar type. Who shall tell us what facial character prevailed in the "country of Moab"?...The appropriateness of the expression of this figure must be judged of still more arbitrarily. Of one thing only the painter places us in certainty by the barley Ruth holds - which is, that he intended to represent the well-remembered incident of the beautiful Old Testament idyl, when the young widow, coming to the land of her adoption - the land of her poor and widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, whom she would not forsake - enters the fields of Boaz to glean at the barley harvest, thinking, peradventure, she might "find grace" in the eyes of her rich relative...it is sometimes forgotten that the first son borne by Ruth to Boaz after their marriage was the grandfather of King David, and of course, therefore, the descent is direct from Ruth to the mother of our Saviour'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.