Not on display

The Dawn of Love

Oil Painting
1846 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Painting, oil on canvas. By a spring in the fresh Highland countryside, the young man has just declared his love and proposed marriage, and the lass, 'Jeannie fair', has accepted. The timid and hesitant natures of both boy and girl are delightfully expressed, and the picture's simple directness, which perfectly matches that of Burns' verse, make this one of the most affecting images of rustic courtship in nineteenth-century art. Signed and dated by the artist.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleThe Dawn of Love (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
oil on canvas
Brief description
Oil painting entitled 'The Dawn of Love' by Thomas Brooks. Great Britain, 1846.
Physical description
Painting, oil on canvas. By a spring in the fresh Highland countryside, the young man has just declared his love and proposed marriage, and the lass, 'Jeannie fair', has accepted. The timid and hesitant natures of both boy and girl are delightfully expressed, and the picture's simple directness, which perfectly matches that of Burns' verse, make this one of the most affecting images of rustic courtship in nineteenth-century art. Signed and dated by the artist.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 111.7cm
  • Estimate width: 86.4cm
  • Framed height: 127.2cm
  • Framed width: 101.5cm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990
Style
Marks and inscriptions
'T Brooks 1846' (Signed and dated by the artist, lower right)
Credit line
Given by Christopher Pearse
Object history
Given by Christopher Pearse, 1864
Like the painting by Duncan (cat.no.74), this has an extrinsic reference provided by a literary quotation instead of a title (it only became known as The Dawn of Love in later years) in the 1846 exhibition catalogue, in the form of lines from a poem by Robert Burns, 'There was a lass'.
O Jeannie fair, I love you dear;
O can you think to fancy me?
Will you leave your mother's home
And learn to tend the farms with me?
Now what could artless Jeannie do?
She had no wish to say no;
At length she blushed a sweet consent,
And love was ever between them.
By a spring in the fresh Highland countryside, the young man has just declared his love and proposed marriage, and the lass, 'Jeannie fair', has accepted. The timid and hesitant natures of both boy and girl are delightfully expressed, and the picture's simple directness, which perfectly matches that of Burns' verse, make this one of the most affecting images of rustic courtship in nineteenth-century art.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Parkinson, R., Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 11
Collection
Accession number
FA.241[O]

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdDecember 15, 1999
Record URL
Download as: JSONIIIF Manifest