3-016-765 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"A Train of Thought," by J. D. Watson, in the Winter Exhibition, 1864. '...the subject of this picture...is simply a young, intelligent, and gallant-looking fellow, dressed in Elizabethan doublet, raff, trunk hose, and slashed shoes, sitting on a carved chest or cabinet, and nursing one leg in an attitude of meditation. He seems to have fallen into a "train of thought," suggested by the book he has been reading. His thoughtful physiognomy, his books, his dress, and bearing allow us to conjecture that, like Raleigh and other celebrities of the time, he may be at once scholar and soldier, an author and literary student, and at the same time a courtly, gallant, and adventurous man of the world. What book is he reading?...The book is shut, and he keeps his index-finger between the leaves, so that we cannot tell what it is; and we must be content to peruse the reader's face, and guess at his "Train of Thought." We must add, in justice to the artist, that...his skill as a draughtsman on wood is shown in our Engraving; and we may add that he is as much at home in water, colours as in oil, or with "the point".' From "Illustrated London News", 1864.