Oil paint on board
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>
Aurora Leighs Dismissal Romney Tryst
Bequeathed by Beresford Rimington Heaton 1940
actions: expressive
adults
architecture
arguing
book - non-specific
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ‘Aurora Leigh’
courting
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
garden
garden structures
ivy
landscape
lily
literary
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
love
man
objects
people
plants and flowers
poet
reading, writing, printed matter
sex and relationships
society
woman
wooded
work and occupations
<p>This painting illustrates an early scene from the poem <span>Aurora Leigh </span>(1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora is an aspiring poet. Her cousin Romney has proposed marriage, asking Aurora to devote herself to his philanthropic projects. She rejects him and this role of ‘helpmate’ in order to follow her vocation as a writer. Here, she holds a book of her poems that Romney has dismissed with doubts of a woman’s ability to create meaningful art. This work was commissioned by a friend of Barrett Browning, art collector Ellen Heaton.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2018</em></p>
painting oil paint board
6 October 2001 – 6 January 2002
2002-01-06
6 October 2001 – 6 January 2002
2002-01-06
2001-10-06
Castle Museum (Norwich, UK)
2001-10-06
Frederick Sandys and the Pre-Raphaelites
Loan-out
12 July 2003 – 15 August 2004
2004-08-15
12 July 2003 – 28 September 2003
2003-09-28
2003-07-12
Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth, Australia)
25 October 2003 – 15 February 2004
2004-02-15
2003-10-25
Dunedin Public Art Gallery (Dunedin, New Zealand)
http://www.dunedin.art.museum
14 May 2004 – 15 August 2004
2004-08-15
2004-05-14
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
2003-07-12
The Pre-Raphaelite Dream: Paintings and Drawings from the Tate Collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
1 August 2005 – 30 July 2007
2007-07-30
1 August 2005
2005-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-08-01
The Pre-Raphaelites
Collection based display
17 October 2011 – 1 August 2012
2012-08-01
17 October 2011 – 1 August 2012
2012-08-01
2011-10-17
Laing Art Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
2011-10-17
Reciprocal loan for TL Touring: Alice in Wonderland
Loan-out
12 September 2012 – 31 January 2014
2014-01-31
10 June 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2012-09-12
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
Exhibition
17 February 2013 – 31 August 2014
2014-08-31
10 June 2013 – 13 October 2013
2013-10-13
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2013-02-17
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
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
1 October 2022 – 31 January 2023
2023-01-31
1 October 2022 – 31 January 2023
2023-01-31
2022-10-01
La Piscine, Musée d’art et d’industrie (Roubaix, France)
2022-10-01
William Morris
Loan-out
Aurora Leigh’s Dismissal of Romney (‘The Tryst’)
support: 394 × 310 mm
frame: 526 × 438 × 42 mm
Bequeathed by Beresford Rimington Heaton 1940
<p>Miss Ellen Heaton, a patron of Rossetti, commissioned this <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>painting</span></a> for thirty pounds on
the recommendation of the critic John Ruskin, who told her that Hughes was 'quite safe - <em>every</em>-body will like what he does ... his sense of beauty is quite exquisite' (Surtees, p.175). The subject is taken from the narrative poem 'Aurora
Leigh' (1856) by Elizabeth Barret Browning, who was a friend of Miss Heaton. Aurora, an orphan raised by her aunt, aspires to be a poetess. On the morning of her twentieth birthday she rejects a marriage proposal by her cousin Romney Leigh. She chooses
to devote herself to her vocation in defiance of Romney, who disparages her verses and wants her to dedicate herself to his philanthropic causes. Aurora tells Romney that what he loves 'Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause: | You want a helpmate, not a
mistress, sir. | A wife to help your ends, - in her no end!' </p><p>The painting depicts the moment when Romney has been refused and is about to take his leave. Aurora holds a book of her verses which Romney has found in the garden and made fun of. Miss
Heaton and Hughes disagreed over which scene in the poem should be depicted. The patron had wanted an earlier incident, but in a letter dated 14 December 1860, Hughes said, 'The moment I chose to paint was the best - Romney turning away ... If I had
not chosen that moment, the story as Romney's dismissal would I think have been confused - it would rather have seemed a quarrel of which we did not see the end nor know the cause' (Mander, p.222). Ruskin sided with the artist. Miss Heaton also wanted
Aurora shown in a white dress as in the poem, but Hughes felt that a sea-green dress would better complement the landscape. He had trouble with 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/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>, and asked Miss Heaton in the December letter 'kindly to pay me the price of the frame 632 -
separate from the thirty guineas for the painting, as it has really cost me a great deal more time than I thought such a subject would have' (Mander, pp.222-3). He painted out Romney's hat twice; the overpainting has since become transparent, and
traces of the two hats can be seen. He may have used himself and his wife, Tryphena, as the models for the figures. Miss Heaton must eventually have become reconciled to the picture, as the same month she commissioned from Hughes another painting,
<em>That was a Piedmontese ...</em> (1862, Tate Gallery <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N05244" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N05244');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N05244</span></a>), which again required Ruskin's intervention to mediate between the two parties.</p><p><em>Aurora Leigh's Dismissal of Romney</em> was never exhibited in
Hughes's lifetime, and remained virtually undocumented and the subject unidentified until Rosalie Mander's 1964 article '"The Tryst" Unravelled', in <em>Apollo</em>.</p><p><strong>Further reading:</strong><br/>Rosalie Mander, '"The Tryst" Unravelled',
<em>Apollo</em>, vol.79, March 1964, pp.221-3, 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.227-9<br/>Leslie Parris
(ed.), <em>The Pre-Raphaelites</em>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1984, reprinted 1994, pp.189-90, reproduced in colour<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>This painting illustrates an early scene from the poem <i>Aurora Leigh </i>(1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora is an aspiring poet. Her cousin Romney has proposed marriage, asking Aurora to devote herself to his philanthropic projects. She rejects him and this role of ‘helpmate’ in order to follow her vocation as a writer. Here, she holds a book of her poems that Romney has dismissed with doubts of a woman’s ability to create meaningful art. This work was commissioned by a friend of Barrett Browning, art collector Ellen Heaton.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2018-08-03T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: expressive adults architecture arguing book - non-specific Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ‘Aurora Leigh’ courting emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas garden garden structures ivy landscape lily literary literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) love man objects people plants and flowers poet reading, writing, printed matter sex and relationships society woman wooded work and occupations