Throwing off Her Weeds thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Paintings, Room 82, The Edwin and Susan Davies Galleries

Throwing off Her Weeds

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

A young widow is impatient to discard her black mourning clothes (known as widow's weeds) because she has plans to marry again. The seamstress is showing her a lilac-coloured dress, a colour considered appropriate for a woman in the last phase of mourning. At this time, the mourning period for a husband was expected to be at least two years.

Originally the picture included a figure of a soldier, the widow's new suitor, entering through the doorway. Critics thought this was vulgar, and Redgrave painted the figure out, but he kept a number of other visual clues to suggest that the woman is soon to be married again: there is a bridal bonnet in the hat-box in the foreground, and a sprig of orange blossom (a flower which was usually worn or carried at weddings) on the dressing table.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleThrowing off Her Weeds (popular title)
Materials and techniques
oil on panel
Brief description
Oil painting by Richard Redgrave entitled 'Throwing off her Weeds'. Great Britain, 1846.
Physical description
Oil painting
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 76.2cm
  • Estimate width: 62.3cm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990
Styles
Marks and inscriptions
'Richd Redgrave 1846' (Signed and dated by the artist on hat box, lower right)
Credit line
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Object history
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Subjects depicted
Summary
A young widow is impatient to discard her black mourning clothes (known as widow's weeds) because she has plans to marry again. The seamstress is showing her a lilac-coloured dress, a colour considered appropriate for a woman in the last phase of mourning. At this time, the mourning period for a husband was expected to be at least two years.

Originally the picture included a figure of a soldier, the widow's new suitor, entering through the doorway. Critics thought this was vulgar, and Redgrave painted the figure out, but he kept a number of other visual clues to suggest that the woman is soon to be married again: there is a bridal bonnet in the hat-box in the foreground, and a sprig of orange blossom (a flower which was usually worn or carried at weddings) on the dressing table.
Bibliographic reference
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, pp. 241-43
Collection
Accession number
FA.170[O]

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Record createdMay 8, 2003
Record URL
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