The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light

The title comes from Isaiah, Chapter 9, verse 2, although perhaps the second part of the verse is more pertinent to Watt's depiction: 'they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined'. When the drawing was exhibited it bore the suggestion that it was a design for a fresco, though it is thought unlikely that this was ever executed. The figure crouched and reading lower left is repeated in Progress, an oil so large that it was still incomplete in the artist's studio at the time of his death, and which was only exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1905. A smaller version is in the York City Art Gallery. (Mrs Watts recalled that the rider on the white horse above was supposed to represent the progress of spiritual and intellectual ideals.) The present drawing received a favourable notice in the Art Journal, op.cit. when exhibited: 'A red chalk drawing of charming feeling; it is a small figure composition reminding the spectator of both Corregio and Raffaele'.