3-021-024 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Well-Known Knock", by R. Carrick, in the Exhibition at the French Gallery, Pall-Mall, 1869. Engraving of a painting. 'A simple and touching story of duties and trials in humble life, of wifely devotion and marital constancy...By the dresses of the young mother and the little one who has risen with her, and also by the candle brought and placed on the stairs - not to be blown out at the door by, perhaps, a stormy wind raging without (and the "cast shadows" thrown by which are so well managed by the artist) - we see that the summons for admission to a beloved home has come at night. That it is the return of husband and father we have an additional assurance in the title. By the ear of affection that knock could never be mistaken...We are further told by the eager gratification depicted on the pleasant countenance of the wife and in her attitude of haste, so wholly free from any trace of doubt or apprehension, and by the quiet confidence of the child, longing likewise to give the kiss of welcome, that absence has been enforced by duty, and any delay was compulsory...Perhaps it is some service of responsibility and danger which detains the man from home habitually far into the night; perhaps some public duty by sea or land'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.