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Edwin Long, 1829–1891, British, The Daughters of Our Empire. England: The Primrose, 1887
- Title:
The Daughters of Our Empire. England: The Primrose
- Date:
- 1887
- Medium:
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions:
- 50 x 33 inches (127 x 83.8 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Signed and dated in brown paint, lower left: "EL 1887" (initials in monogram)
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Virginia Kincaid Huschke in memory of Arthur J. Morris
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1998.23
- Classification:
- Paintings
- Collection:
- Paintings and Sculpture
- Link to Frame:
- B1998.23FR
- Subject Terms:
- costume | English primrose | female | flowers (plants) | forest | gloves | portrait | Pre-Raphaelite | romantic | ruffles | skirts (garments) | trees | Victorian | woman
- Associated People:
- Churchill [née Jerome], Jeanette [Jennie; Lady Randolph Churchill] (1854–1921), mother of Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965)
- Access:
- Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:12021
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In 1886, Edwin Long arranged with his art dealer, William Agnew, to produce a series of twenty portraits depicting the various types of female beauty present throughout the British Empire. The growth and prosperity of the empire, while a masculine endeavor, was theorized and disseminated in feminine terms: Britannia going forth and civilizing the world. Five works in the series were allegorical depictions of England, including this representation of the primrose offering her bounty within an English wood. The model for the primrose was in fact the American heiress Jennie Jerome, who since 1874 had been married to Lord Randolph Churchill, a son of the Duke of Marlborough. Lady Randolph, as she was then known, was born in Brooklyn in 1854 and was the mother of the future prime minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965), one of the last figures to fully represent the high Victorian and almost sentimental notion of the benign British Empire captured in Long’s painting. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
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