Naomi

The story of Naomi features in the Old Testament, in the Book of Ruth. She undergoes many misfortunes and losses, becoming a widow in a strange land, who also has to grieve for both of her sons. She finds great solace in closeness to her daughter-in-law Ruth and her grandson Obed. Naomi is often read as an inspiring figure representing fortitude in the face of hardship, all the more poignant for those facing similar losses at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the year the picture was painted. Fildes and his wife had themselves lost a son, to illness rather than war. Fildes depicts the Biblical figure as young, statuesque and dignified, though her dark tired eyes give a suggestion of her sufferings. She was often a source of admiration within Victorian culture as a model for female nobility and endurance.