Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/augustus-leopold-egg-169" aria-label="More by Augustus Leopold Egg" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Augustus Leopold Egg</a>
Past and Present 2
Presented by Sir Alec and Lady Martin in memory of their daughter Nora 1918
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
architecture
astronomy
bed
bedroom
chair
children
comforting
domestic
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
features
fine arts and music
furnishings
girl
grief
interiors
kneeling
mirror
moon
morality
night
objects
people
picture
sitting
social comment
society
table
times of the day
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
window
<p>This forms part of a series of three paintings which consider the consequences of love outside marriage in Victorian Britain. This painting, <span>Past, </span>acts as the central scene, showing a wife begging forgiveness from her husband while their children look on. He holds a letter which reveals an affair and stamps on a portrait miniature of her lover. The room is full of symbols of the family’s downfall, such as the apple cut in two.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
29 August 2001 – 25 July 2005
2005-07-25
29 August 2001
2001-08-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-29
Art and Victorian Society
Collection based display
1 August 2005 – 2 March 2008
2008-03-02
1 August 2007
2007-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-08-01
Victorian Paintings of Modern Life
Collection based display
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2010-12-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-12-02
Gallery 9
Collection based display
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
Gallery 9
Collection based display
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
1 April 2019 – 22 July 2019
2019-07-22
1 April 2019 – 22 July 2019
2019-07-22
2019-04-01
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
2019-04-01
Moon
Loan-out
Past and Present, No. 2
support: 635 × 762 mm
frame: 802 × 926 × 90 mm
Presented by Sir Alec and Lady Martin in memory of their daughter Nora 1918
<p>This is the second of a set of three modern-life pictures on the theme of the fallen woman. The other two (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/egg-past-and-present-no-1-n03278" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03278</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/egg-past-and-present-no-3-n03280" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03280</span></a>) are also in the Tate collection. They are typical of the social moralist pictures that were popular in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'"><span>Victorian</span></a> art.   

</p><p>The theme of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/triptych" title="Glossary definition for 'Triptych'"><span>triptych</span></a> is the discovery of the woman's infidelity and its consequences.  In the first scene the family are still together, and the husband has just learned of his wife's adultery. The second scene is a dimly-lit garret, five years later. The room is sparsely furnished and the few decorations include two <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> of the absent mother and father. The father has recently died and the mother has been driven out of her home, a fallen woman. The two orphaned girls comfort each other, the elder gazing sadly over the rooftops towards the moon.

</p><p>When the set of pictures was first shown at the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> in 1858, the drawing-room scene was hung between the other two. The writer and art critic John Ruskin described the three works in his <i>Academy Notes</i>, 

</p><p>In the central piece the husband discovers his wife's infidelity; he dies five years afterwards.   The two lateral pictures represent the same moment of night a fortnight after his death.  The same little cloud is under the moon.  The two children see it from the chamber in which they are praying for their lost mother, and their mother, from behind a boat under a vault on the river shore. (John Ruskin, <i>Academy Notes</i>, 8 May 1858.)

</p><p>The pictures were exhibited with no title, but with this subtitle, 'August the 4<sup>th</sup> - Have just heard that B - has been dead more than a fortnight, so his poor children have now lost both parents.  I hear she was seen on Friday last near the Strand, evidently without a place to lay her head.  What a fall hers has been!' In Victorian England a man could safely take a mistress without fear of recrimination, but for a woman to be unfaithful was an unforgivable crime.  As Caroline Norton, an early feminist, wrote, 'the faults of women are visited as sins, the sins of men are not even visited as faults' (quoted in Lambourne, p.374).

</p><p><b>Further reading:</b><br/>Lionel Lambourne, <i>Victorian Painting</i>, London 1999, pp.374-5, reproduced p.376, in colour.<br/>Christopher Wood, <i>Victorian Painting</i>, London 1999, pp.52-3, reproduced p.53, in colour.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>1 December 2000<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>This series of three paintings (Past and Present, No. 1, 1858; Past and Present, No. 2, 1858; Past and Present, No. 3, 1858) considers the consequences of love outside marriage In Victorian Britain. The central scene, ‘Past’ shows a wife begging forgiveness from her husband while their children look on. He holds a letter which reveals an affair and stamps on a portrait miniature of her lover. The room is full of symbols of the family’s downfall, such as the apple cut in two. The paintings either side show ‘Present’ five years later, two weeks after the husband has died of despair. Identical moons indicate that they take place at the same moment. The two girls comfort each other. The homeless mother shelters under the Adelphi arches, by the River Thames in London, holding the baby that resulted from her affair. The posters for two plays, ‘Victims’ and ‘A Cure for Love’, and ‘Pleasure Excursions to Paris’, are ironic comments on her situation.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-30T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions architecture astronomy bed bedroom chair children comforting domestic emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas features fine arts and music furnishings girl grief interiors kneeling mirror moon morality night objects people picture sitting social comment society table times of the day townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features window