Cogliete le rose finché potete

The title comes from a poem printed in 1648 by Robert Herrick, an English clergyman: gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying. It is a plea to young women not to waste their spring, and Waterhouse took it up twice. This is his second version, painted in 1909, when he was in his sixties and the Pre-Raphaelite manner he loved had long gone out of fashion. A girl in white bends to cut roses into a shallow bowl, the whole canvas pitched in soft autumnal light. For most of the 20th century the picture was simply lost, until it turned up on the wall of an old farmhouse in Canada and was recognised only when the owners took it to be valued.