Study for 'Hesperus the Evening Star, Sacred to Lovers'

The present drawing is a study for Paton's oil painting Hesperus, now in the Glasgow Art Gallery (fig. 1) which he painted around the time of his marriage to Margaret Ferrier. Hesperus was one of the four brother knights who guarded the passages of Castle Perilous and was called 'the evening star' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The blend of rapture and reverence encapsulated by the picture is reflective of the contemporary attitude to courtship.

An illustration of Hesperus by Paton forms the front cover of C. Wood, The Pre-Raphaelites, London, 1997.