2-871-259 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The Awakening Conscience, 1852-1854. A mistress or 'kept woman' and her lover have been playing and singing to Thomas Moore's "Oft in the Stilly Night". Suddenly she has a moment of revelation: she has lost her innocence but the ray of light in the foreground indicates that redemption is still possible. The image is full of symbolism: the cat toying with a broken-winged bird echoes the woman's plight, and a man's discarded glove warns us that the likely fate of a cast-off mistress was prostitution. Victorian morality dictated that women were the guardians of 'purity' while men bore little or no responsibility. Painting in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London. From "Pre-Raphaelite Painters" by Robin Ironside, with a descriptive catalogue by John Gere. [The Phaidon Press Ltd, London, 1948]