3-016-992 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Seule à La Maison," by C. Bisschop, in the Exhibition of French and Flemish Art, Pall-Mall, 1864. Engraving of a painting. '"All Alone In Doors!"...[It depicts a] home made lonely and almost desolate by the absence of its natural head...The model of a quaint old Dutch ship seems to intimate that the trim, comely young Dutch woman has a mariner husband, who...provides this home for both by committing himself to the cruel and treacherous sea...We must not...allow our thoughts to carry us out over and beyond that frozen canal, along the silent surface of which this young wife looks for one that "cometh not" with such yearning, wistful earnestness...there are evidences - in the handsome marqueterie cabinet, in the looking-glass with the favourite ebony frame...in the piece of ornamental delf[t]...of moderate fortunes and a tolerably well-to-do position...Lastly, we must not forget to notice the skates, which have just been taken off; for by these...[we are] reminded of the almost incredible number of miles some of these Dutch women will skate along the canals ...when frozen in winter, carrying provisions to the market towns...she throws open the casement in the fond though groundless hope of still seeing the good man appear on the horizon'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.