This image of two lovers clasped in each other’s arms is based on a poem of the same name – ‘Love’. The poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) and describes a lovers' midnight meeting. It appeared in an illustrated edition of Poets of the Nineteenth Century published by the Dalziel brothers in 1857. They were key figures in the printed book trade at this time and commissioned the work of artists for their editions.

This watercolour was painted some five years later by the British artist John Everett Millais (1829-1896). He was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of 19th-century painters, poets and writers who looked to early Renaissance painters for inspiration. Here, for example, Millais has shown the lovers in ‘medieval’ dress.