A man of strife in wrathful mood, He neared the nurse's door, for "Strife and Peace"

George John Pinwell|Jean Ingelow

1866 · Pen and ink with white gouache (bodycolor) on artist's board · Drawings and Prints

Pinwell belonged to the Idyllists, a group of young British artists active from the mid 1860s into the 1870s (others in the group were Frederick Walker and Arthur Boyd Houghton). This meditative image responds to a poem by Jean Ingelow and was engraved by the Dalziel Brothers, then published in Ingelow's "Poems" (1867, p. 266; see 65.629.11 and 20.72 for copies of the volume in the Met's collection). Related lines of verse read: "Trouble and no release; / But the babe whose life awoke the strife / Hath entered into peace," the implication being that the baby held by the seated woman in the background of the drawing beyond a closing door, has just died. Pinwell responds in a typically meditative way to this sad subject. White bodycolor addtions and areas of reworking demonstrate how he developed the image which is close in size to the related wood engraving.

Artist

George John Pinwell|Jean Ingelow

Date

1866

Medium

Pen and ink with white gouache (bodycolor) on artist's board

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Bequest of James David Draper and the Robert Isaacson Collection, 2020