Waiting at the Cottage Door

The uniform appears to be that of an Able Seaman on shore leave in the Royal Navy. The departure and return of sailors was a subject that provided Victorian genre painters with ample opportunity to explore the angst and heart-ache engendered by these events. The best-known of these works is Arthur Hughes's Home from Sea (1856-62; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum). It is a tragic representation of a young sailor cast down upon his face on the newly turfed grave where his mother had been put in his absence, his sister in mourning kneeling beside him. The mood of the present work is much more light-hearted as a smiling young sailor returns to the cottage of his sweetheart or family.