Les Longues Fiançailles

Hughes began this canvas in 1853 as a scene from Shakespeare, Orlando carving his beloved's name on the trees of the Forest of Arden. Over the next several years he changed his mind, enlarged the panel, and painted out the Elizabethan lovers, putting in their place a very Victorian pair, a poorly paid country curate and the woman he cannot yet afford to marry. That was a real bind of the day. A clergyman on a small stipend might keep a fiancée waiting years until a better living came through. The story sits in the tree beside them. He carved her name, Amy, into the bark long ago as a promise, and the ivy has now crept up to cover the letters.