Hope

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Artist: George Frederic Watts (British, 1817–1904)
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 26 × 19 inches (66 × 48.3 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

By the 1880s, George Frederick Watts had become one of the most celebrated Victorian painters and aimed to restore allegorical painting to a prominent place in British art. Adopting a symbolist approach later in life, he declared, "I paint ideas, not things." In this painting, Hope sits on a globe wearing a blindfold. She looks forlorn as she plucks at a broken lyre. This version is one of at least five painted by the artist and is the only one to include a rainbow behind the figure.

It was purchased by Richard Budgett in memory of his late wife, who had been a keen admirer of Watts’s work. The rainbow, as a link between heaven and earth, hints at an enduring bond between the couple. Watts’s Hope was the subject of a sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright that inspired future President Barack Obama and later prompted the title of his book The Audacity of Hope.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.