''Past and Present'' is the title usually given to the series of three

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

s made by Augustus Egg in 1858, which are designed to be exhibited together as a

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

. When first exhibited at

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1858 the paintings were untitled, but accompanied by a fictional quotation from a diary, "August the 4th – Have just heard that B— has been dead more than a fortnight, so his poor children have now lost both parents. I hear she was seen on Friday last near the Strand, evidently without a place to lay her head. What a fall hers has been!".

Painting

The triptych depicts the discovery and disastrous consequences of a wife's

adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...

on a middle-class Victorian family. The artist leaves the viewer to determine whether the woman should be condemned or pitied. The paintings reflected fears that public morality and family life were imperiled by the recent

Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act reformed the law on divorce, moving litigation from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts to the civil courts, establishing a model of marriage ...

, which reformed the law of

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

by moving jurisdiction from the ecclesiastical courts to the civil court, and made divorce a realistic prospect for the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...

es. The works – a visual

morality tale The morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor drama. The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts ( ...

based on a single moment – were influenced by

William Holman Hunt William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolis ...

's 1853 painting ''

The Awakening Conscience ''The Awakening Conscience'' (1853) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which depicts a woman rising from her position in the lap of a man and gazing trans ...

''. It is not certain how they acquired the title ''Past and Present'', which is not known to have been used by the artist, and is first recorded in the auction catalogue for Egg's works after his death in 1863. It is surmised that it derives from a misreading of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

's ''Academy Notes'', in which the untitled works are discussed below a review of a painting with that title. At the original 1858 exhibition, the first painting – the discovery in the drawing-room – was hung flanked by the two other paintings, which depict parallel scenes several years later. When originally exhibited, the central painting was raised slightly above the flanking images. Ruskin's "Academy Notes" (8 May 1858) described the three works:

In the central piece the husband discovers his wife's infidelity; he dies five years afterwards. The two lateral pictures represent the same moment of night a fortnight after his death. The same little cloud is under the moon. The two children see it from the chamber in which they are praying for their lost mother, and their mother, from behind a boat under a vault on the river shore.

Each painting measures by . They were all donated to the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 1918 by Sir Alec and Lady Martin in memory of their daughter Nora, and are now usually given the rather prosaic titles ''Past and Present, No. 1'', ''Past and Present, No. 2'' and ''Past and Present, No. 3'', although occasionally they are titled ''Misfortune'', ''Prayer'', and ''Despair''. The number order does not represent the way they were exhibited (the first scene was shown in the centre), but rather an implied conventional Hogarthian progress of social decline from middle-class prosperity through genteel poverty and, finally, to destitution.

''Past and Present, No. 1''

The first painting shows the

drawing-room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th cent ...

of a middle-class Victorian home, with a large gilt mirror over a fireplace, and central round table. It depicts the moment when the family's domestic bliss is broken, with many details echoing the sudden change in circumstances. A woman lies prostrate on the green carpet before her husband, fallen as if in a swoon, hands clasped together, with her gold serpent bracelet resembling manacles. He sits dumbfounded, clutching a letter which reveals her adultery, his left foot resting on a portrait miniature of her lover. An apple has been cut into two pieces; one half remains beside the husband's glossy

top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditional ...

on the table, stabbed through its worm-ridden core by a small knife; the other half has fallen to the floor beside the wife. The family's two daughters are playing to the left of the painting, but their

house of cards A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a structu ...

– built on top of a novel by Balzac, possibly also a tale of adultery – is tumbling to the floor. (The older girl was modelled by Jane, one of

William Powell Frith William Powell Frith (9 January 1819 – 2 November 1909) was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting ''The Sleep ...

's daughters.)Charlotte Mitchell, ‘Panton , Jane Ellen (1847–1923)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 30 Oct 2016
/ref> The rear wall of the room, decorated with a rich red wallpaper, also bears two portraits, one on either side of the fireplace and mirror: the wife's portrait hangs to the left, above the playing children but beneath a picture of the expulsion of

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

from the Garden of Eden (labelled " The Fall"); the husband's to the right hangs beneath a shipwreck scene by

Clarkson Stanfield Clarkson Frederick Stanfield (3 December 179318 May 1867) was a prominent English painter (often inaccurately credited as William Clarkson Stanfield) who was best known for his large-scale paintings of dramatic marine subjects and landscapes. ...

(labelled "Abandoned"). The mirror shows the open door, through which the wife is soon to depart. The packed bag and umbrella by the door may underline her imminent departure, or could have been cast down by the husband when he arrived home.

''Past and Present, No. 2''

The second painting shows a night scene, several years later, in a dark and sparsely-furnished bedroom shortly after the death of the heartbroken husband. The children are older now: the younger one kneels in a white nightgown, weeping into the lap of the elder, who sits in a black

mourning dress Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...

, looking out of a window at rooftops and a clouded moon. The same small portraits of the husband and the wife decorate the bedroom wall.

''Past and Present, No. 3''

The third painting is also a night scene. The details of the cloud and moon show it is the same evening as depicted in the second painting. The fallen wife is resting in the detritus-strewn shadows beneath the Adelphi Arches, by the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

. She clutches a bundle of rags from which protrude the emaciated legs of an infant, perhaps the fruit of her affair, either asleep or dead. Posters on the wall advertise two contemporary plays, ''Victims'' by

Tom Taylor Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language a ...

and ''The Cure for Love'' by Tom Parry, both tales of unhappy marriages, and also "Pleasure excursions to Paris", perhaps a reference to the novel by Balzac in the first picture. She looks up from her place in the gutter to the moon and stars above. A similarly watery destination for fallen women was depicted in

Rossetti The House of Rossetti is an Italian noble, and Boyar Princely family appearing in the 14th-15th century, originating among the patrician families, during the Republic of Genoa, with branches of the family establishing themselves in the Kingdom o ...

's '' Found'', GF Watts's ''

Found Drowned ''Found Drowned'' is an oil painting by George Frederic Watts, c. 1850, inspired by Thomas Hood's 1844 poem '' The Bridge of Sighs''. The painting depicts the dead body of a woman washed up beneath the arch of Waterloo Bridge, with her lower b ...

'' and

Abraham Solomon Abraham Solomon (London 7 May 1823 – 19 December 1862 Biarritz) was a British painter. Born as the second son of Meyer Solomon, a Leghorn hat manufacturer, by his wife Catherine, in Sandys Street, Bishopsgate in east London. His fath ...

's ''Drowned! Drowned!'', all inspired by

Thomas Hood Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as " The Bridge of Sighs" and " The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for ''The London Magazine'', '' Athenaeum'', and ''Punch' ...

's 1844 poem, " The Bridge of Sighs".

References

{{reflist *Tate Gallery: **''Past and Present, No. 1''
ImageShort Text
**''Past and Present, No. 2''
ImageShort Text
**''Past and Present, No. 3''
ImageShort Text

''Pictorial Victorians: the inscription of values in word and image''
Julia Thomas, pp. 145–159.
''Pre-Raphaelites re-viewed''
Marcia R. Pointon, p. 51.
''Culture and adultery: the novel, the newspaper, and the law, 1857-1914''
Barbara Leckie, pp. 73–76.
''Affairs of the hearth: Victorian poetry and domestic narrative''
Rod Edmond, pp. 114–115
''Woman and the demon: the life of a Victorian myth''
Nina Auerbach, p. 154.
''The Culture of Love: Victorians to Moderns''
Stephen Kern, p. 149.

Tate Papers, Spring 2007

Painting

''Past and Present, No. 1''

''Past and Present, No. 2''

''Past and Present, No. 3''

References

Further reading