3-074-789 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Doubts", from the picture by E. F. Brewtnall, 1883. Engraving of a painting. 'Youth is generally hopeful, trustful, confiding, but it is sometimes also doubtful, and distrustful from sheer timidity, inexperience, and a too modest estimate of itself. We prefer to assume that such is the case in reference to the sweet and candid young lady, pondering dubiously over the letter from her lover which she holds in her hand. The accessories indicate that she has a comfortable home among the well-to-do middle-class, and perhaps the prétendu has the fault of being poor. Perhaps she fancies her own great, love cannot be sufficiently returned, or perhaps she may think herself unworthy of the man who has honoured her with his choice. Whatever the painter's intention, whatever the gentle reader's version, the "motive" of the picture, however frequently repeated, is always susceptible of a new reading, and always affords an excellent apology for a picture with a single female figure. We have to add that the artist is Mr. E. F. Brewtnall, a rising member of the Royal Water Colour Society, who is equally at home in oil-painting, as we see in this example at the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, of which society he has also become a member'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.