William Derby Edwin & Angelina

An original early 19th-century watercolour painting, William Derby, Edwin & Angelina.

This affecting painting is the work of William Derby (1786–1847), a miniature painter and copyist of astonishing skill. The figures depicted, Edwin and Angelina (from the ballad of the same name by 18th-century novelist Oliver Goldsmith), are painted with a tenderness and elegance that are a testament to this skill—shining out almost luminously from the sepia gloom of the hermit's cave.

The painting captures an exchange full of promise: Angelina on the right is disguised as a male pilgrim on a journey of repentance, believing that her rebuffed suiter Edwin has died of a broken heart. A hermit she meets advises the concealed Angelina to renounce women altogether, but upon revealing her true identity, the hermit in turn declares himself to be Edwin and the lovers are reunited.

The ballad was published in Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield in 1766, which was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians. As you peel back the obfuscating layers of disguise and esoteric reference, this is an image which speaks of universal love, Victorian romantic nostalgia, and—as Goldsmith's novel has ultimately come to be understood—a satire on excessive sentiment.

Edwin and Angelia is a subject that has been treated by various artists including John Martin, Thomas Stothard, Walter Stephens Lethbridge, Robert Pollard and Charles Taylor.

Brown watercolour on wove paper, laid down on backing paper. Overlap of paint onto the backing indicates that the paper was laid down by the artist.