Silver and Gold by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915). 1862-64. Oil on canvas. 39 x 26½ inches (99 x 67.3 cm). Collection of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Image courtesy of Christie's, London © 1991 Christie's Images Limited. (Right click disabled; not to be downloaded).
Hughes exhibited this painting, surely one of his most poetic conceptions, at the Royal Academy in 1864, no. 486. It has been purchased in February 1863, prior to the exhibition, by his principal patron the Brighton wine-merchant John Hamilton Trist. The picture features an attractive young woman leading her grandmother around a garden, both clad in costumes of the Elizabethan period.
When the painting came up for auction at Christie's in 1991 John Christian discussed the two principal themes Hughes featured in this painting:
Silver and Gold has two main themes. The passage of time is represented not only by the two women - youth (gold) and age (silver) - but the symbols of the sundial, the fallen lilac petals, and the scythe…. The other theme is love. The name "Amy" carved on the tree trunk suggests the existence of an amorous liaison, while gardens were redolent for the Victorians of "romantic encounters." A heart is carved on the sundial, the motif being picked up in the four corners of the specially designed frame, and purple lilac in the Victorian "language of flowers" symbolised "the first emotions of love." As for the name Amy, it clearly had a special significance for Hughes since it was that of his mother and of his eldest daughter, born in 1857. It also appears carved on a tree in his pictures The Long Engagement (c. 1854-9), as well as the closely related Amy (both Birmingham) and he was no doubt well aware of its origin in the French verb aimer, to love…. The old woman no less than the young one is preoccupied by love. Clearly a widow, she not only listens to the confidences of her companion but "takes comfort from the treasured pendant in her left hand," presumably a relic of her husband. In fact "the two women seem to represent a beginning and an ending in the cycle of love, from its first awakening to its life as a cherished memory." The picture may be summed up as another of the meditations on romantic love which occur so often in Hughes's early work… Silver and Gold (Hughes) is also concerned with the vicissitudes, such as the dove on the base of the pedestal, the butterflies in the borders of the young woman's dress, and the peacock, a symbol of longevity and immortality [90].
A half-length study of the young woman, entitled The Lady with the Lilacs, was commissioned by Hughes's friend Lewis Carroll. It is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. A half-length study of the elderly woman, now unlocated, sold at Philips, London, on July 8, 1980, lot 110.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum found much to praise in this elegant painting: "Silver and Gold (486) shows a bright-haired girl leading her mother by the hand. Both faces here are excellently painted, — solid, sound, complete, and almost free from the purple tint above alluded to; they are expressive, handsome, and characteristic. In all these pictures Mr. Hughes has given us many points of fanciful suggestion, of delicate thought, sound painting, and much elegance of treatment" (651). W. M. Rossetti in Fraser's Magazine considered the work almost a success: "Among the paintings, again, one more, which comes very near being quite a success, is the Silver and Gold of Mr. Hughes, a bright young blonde with her tardy grandmother. All it wants is a little more of positive value and distinct primary impression in point of execution" (70).
The critic of The Saturday Review felt this was the finest of the works Hughes showed that year at the Royal Academy: "Mr. Arthur Hughes maintains the place which he has long taken as one of our best poetical inventors in art by the three pictures now sent – a music party, a scene within a village church, and a group in which a girl leads her grandmother, it may be, through a garden rich with the golden greens and purples of spring. The latter appears to us the most complete of the three. The contrast of youth and age could not be more tenderly expressed, and the natural tints of the scene fall in happily with that peculiar mannerism in colour which interferes with the popular recognition of the peculiar merits of the artist. We cannot but wish that Mr. Hughes would quit for a time that delicate and graceful line of subjects in which he has, indeed, obtained a mastery, and try his powers on rougher or stronger scenes. There is such a mark of individuality on all his works that he need not fear he would lose himself. [65]
Engraving of the painting as reproduced The Magazine of Art in 1882, p. 65
The critics' praise for Hughes's work is admirably summed up in Cosmo Monkhouse's review in the Magazine of Art, originally added to this page by George P. Landow. Monkhouse felt the work was an exemplary example of Pre-Raphaelite art and questioned why academic honours had so far been denied Hughes:
There is probably no house in which the tender and loveable art of Mr. Arthur Hughes can be better studied than in Mr. Trist's. His Silver and Gold . . . come[s] nearer to what the public reckons as Pre-Raphaelite than any other of the works we print; for they are 'purist' in feeling and filled with almost infinite detail of grass and leaf and flower. If the Pre-Raphaelite movement did nothing else, it at least strung up the energies of our young painters to put into their pictures not only all they knew, but whatever they could think and feel. The charming contrast of youth and age to which the title of Silver and Gold has been given, tells its tale too plainly to need description in the text. Except that he is a timid and imperfect draughtsman, and somewhat too sweet and over-gentle, it is difficult to understand why Arthur Hughes should have failed of those academic honours which have fallen to the lot of men of far more ordinary endowments. I know of no modern picture more poetical in feeling or more exquisite in colour than his Morte d'Arthur nor has any one drawn Ophelia more lovely or more pathetic. In the Trist collection you see him always exquisitely tender and true in colour, always sweet and wholesome in sentiment: Whether he appears in some lovely English landscape with flowery foreground; or in that sketch for The King's Orchard (made famous by Mr. Ruskin's praise in 1859 — the well-remembered apple-blossom year at the Royal Academy); or in the charming group of children in church dabbling their fingers in live sunbeams. In the matter of execution, the patience and dexterity of such pictures as that of the sailor-boy at his mother's grave, with its dewdrops and cobweb and Chingford Church covered with innumerable ivy leaves, are notable indeed; while in Enid and Geraint and another picture of a female head, he has given us the quintessence of English womanhood, with its loveliness, its purity, and its sweetness of disposition [69-70].
Image capture (the engraving) by George P. Landow. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and the University of Toronto Library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
Bibliography
Gibson, Robin. "Arthur Hughes at Cardiff and Leighton House." The Burlington Magazine CXIII (December 1971): 761.
Monkhouse, Cosmo. "A Pre-Raphaelite Collection." The Magazine of Art VI (November 1882-October 1883): 62-70. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 8 September 2013.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series III (1 June 1864): 161.
Rossetti, William Michael. "The Royal Academy Exhibition." Fraser's Magazine LXX (July 1864): 57-74.
"The Royal Academy of 1864." The Saturday Review XVII (28 May 1864): 657-58.
Silver and Gold. Christie's. Web. 9 March 2025.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1906 (7 May 1864): 650-51.
Created 8 September 2013
Last modified (painting added and commentary extended)