William Powell Frith, R.A. (1819-1909)

Susan Casteras (op. cit, p. 36) writes of the present picture: 'The iconographic tradition of the Puritan and Cavalier costume piece enjoyed a considerable vogue in the 19th Century. The contradictory loyalties of Royalist and Roundhead as a backdrop for personal conflicts pervaded contemporary literature as well, with Sir Walter Scott's 'Woodstock' (1826) perhaps the most eminent example ... In Frith's canvas, the swain is rather rakish in appearance ... The severe father standing at a desk in a elevated alcove may well derive from an illustration for an 1846 edition of Scott's Woodstock, while the general composition is reminiscent of R.P. Bonnington's design used for an 1833 edition of Peveril of the Peak. Frith may also have been aware of his friend Augustus Egg's Cromwell discovering his Chaplain, Jeremiah White making love to his daughter Frances of 1842, in which a similarly clad patriarch unveils a tryst'.