Oil paint on wood
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/arthur-hughes-283" aria-label="More by Arthur Hughes" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Arthur Hughes</a>
That was a Piedmontese 
Bequeathed by Beresford Rimington Heaton 1940
actions: expressive
adults
architecture
birth to death
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ‘A Court Lady’
clothing and personal items
comforting
compassion
death
diseases and conditions
dress
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
features
history
hospital
interiors
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
man
military
military
objects
people
public and municipal
Risorgimento, c.1815-1871
society
soldier
sword
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
weapons
window
woman
work and occupations
wounded
<p>In this painting Hughes illustrates the last verse of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem ‘A Court Lady’, the final line of which is written on the frame. The poem describes a young woman who visits injured and dying soldiers dressed in her finest court wear, normally worn when meeting with the king. Instead of a dramatic death scene, Hughes set out to paint 'the quiet moment that must have followed it'. The picture was commissioned by Ellen Heaton, an art collector and friend of Barrett Browning.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2018</em></p>
painting oil paint wood
27 February 2010 – 5 December 2010
2010-12-05
27 February 2010 – 6 June 2010
2010-06-06
2010-02-27
Museo d’Arte della città di Ravenna (Ravenna, Italy)
15 September 2010 – 5 December 2010
2010-12-05
2010-09-15
Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, UK)
http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/
2010-02-27
Pre-Raphelites
Loan-out
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
That was a Piedmontese ...
support: 406 × 298 mm
frame: 487 × 384 × 40 mm
Bequeathed by Beresford Rimington Heaton 1940
<p>This was the second of Hughes's <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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> to be commissioned by Miss Ellen Heaton of
Leeds (see also <em>Aurora Leigh's Dismissal of Romney ('The Tryst')</em>, 1860, Tate Gallery <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N05245" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N05245');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N05245</span></a>). Miss Heaton and Hughes began discussing the commission in December 1860, but the work was not completed until
1862. The patron paid thirty-five guineas for the work.</p><p>The subject is from the poem 'A Court Lady' by Elizabeth Barret Browning, who was a friend of Miss Heaton. It appeared in <em>Poems before Congress</em>, published in 1860. The poem describes a
beautiful young woman who puts on full court dress in order to visit hospitalised soldiers who fought in the Risorgimento. Her maids dress her in</p><blockquote>	Diamonds to fasten the hair, diamonds to fasten the sleeves<br/>	Laces to drop from their rays,
like a powder of snow from the eves.</blockquote>The woman goes from bed to bed and stops at last at the bedside of the Piedmontese who dies before her eyes:<blockquote>	Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring -<br/>	'That was a
Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King'.</blockquote>The last line is written in paint on the frame, which is the original.<p>Miss Heaton was disappointed with Hughes's failure to capture the drama of the last verse. In a letter to her of 7
July 1862, the artist explained, 'I don't know if I shall be able to satisfy you with my reason for painting the Court lady as I have done but it is simply this - that I don't like "fervid impassioned exclamation" and have an especial horror of all
such pictures. I prefer the quieter moment that must have followed it and which I feel I can be more successful in' (Mander, p.223). The critic John Ruskin, who had originally introduced Miss Heaton to Hughes, thought the picture 'exquisitely
beautiful in the face of the woman - a very perfect gem in this kind' but was critical of the artist's failure to faithfully depict the poem: 'the whole <em>gist</em> of the poem is that the woman puts on her richest <em>Court</em> dress - that which
she would have worn to wait on the King - that she may wait on the dying men in <em>that</em>. Hughes has not in the least felt or understood this' (Mander, p.223).</p><p><strong>Further reading:</strong><br/>Rosalie Mander, '"The Tryst" Unravelled',
<em>Apollo</em>, vol.79, March 1964, p.223, reproduced<br/>Virginia Surtees (ed.), <em>Sublime &amp; Instructive. Letters from John Ruskin to Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, Anna Blunden and Ellen Heaton</em>, London 1972, pp.228-9, 244-5<br/>Leonard
Roberts, introduction by Stephen Wildman, <em>Arthur Hughes: His Life and Works, a Catalogue Raisonné</em>, Woodbridge, Suffolk [to be published 1997]</p><p>Terry Riggs<br/>December 1997<!-- end text --></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>In this painting Hughes illustrates the last verse of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem ‘A Court Lady’, the final line of which is written on the frame. The poem describes a young woman who visits injured and dying soldiers dressed in her finest court wear, normally worn when meeting with the king. Instead of a dramatic death scene, Hughes set out to paint 'the quiet moment that must have followed it'. The picture was commissioned by Ellen Heaton, an art collector and friend of Barrett Browning. </p>
</div>

Display caption
2018-08-03T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: expressive adults architecture birth to death Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ‘A Court Lady’ clothing and personal items comforting compassion death diseases and conditions dress emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas features history hospital interiors literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man military military objects people public and municipal Risorgimento, c.1815-1871 society soldier sword townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features weapons window woman work and occupations wounded