A characteristic reconstruction of the ancient world by an artist who was, perhaps surprisingly, older than Leighton, Poynter or Alma-Tadema. Long was born in Bath and brought up as an Independent or Congregationalist dissenter. He came to London in 1858 and enjoyed a highly successful career as a painter of historical subjects and portraits, so much so that he was able to commission Norman Shaw to build him not one but two houses in Hampstead. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1855 until his death, becoming an Associate in 1876 and a full Academician in 1881. The Russell-Cotes Museum at Bournemouth has a collection of his works, but his most famous picture is probably The Babylonian Marriage Market at Royal Holloway College. This received an ecstatic reception when it was shown at the RA in 1875, even Ruskin swelling the chorus of praise; and it caused a further sensation in 1881 when Thomas Holloway bought it at Christie's for ¨6,615, a saleroom record which was not to be broken for ten years.
The source of our picture's title has not been identified but a possibility is the historian, poet and essayist Thomas Sinclair. A quick perusal of his long allegorical poem The Messenger (1875) has not proved fruitful, but the metre and diction are similar and it might be worth consulting his other verse, e.g. Poems (1873) and Love's Trilogy (1876).