Lot Essay
This picture was one of a series of twenty commissioned by the London dealers Agnew's to celebrate the Royal Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Various Daughters of Empire were depicted in their national costumes. These included Aden; Bethlehem; India; Wales; Australia; Canada; Cyprus (Ancient: Love's Messenger, and Modern); Egypt; England: the Parson's Daughter, The Violet, The Rose (a portrait of Princess May of Teck, later Queen Mary, wife of King George V), The Primrose, The Little Sister of the Poor; Ireland; Jamaica; Malta; Scotland and Trinidad.
When describing the present lot, Mark Bills notes that it was exhibited in 1887 with the following verse:
Now on these steps worn smooth by countless feet,
Young Arab maids at eve are want to meet,
Their fair heads bearing pitchers, and the hands,
Wreathing the well's dark sides with flowery bands.
(M. Bills, Edwin Longsden Long RA, London, 1998, p. 155)