Waiting for William

At the same time that he was painting the fishermen of Grand Manan Island in Pull for the Shore (71.552), J. G. Brown was focusing on thematically related images of women seated or standing alone at water's edge and gazing wistfully out to sea. Among the loveliest of these is Waiting for William, in which a beautiful young woman, dressed in her finest clothes, surveys the watery horizon, longing for her beloved to return from the sea. With the point of her parasol, she has written his name -William- in the sand. Is William's return imminent, or is he late in coming home? Has he been lost at sea, never to return? As is the case with other examples of Victorian narrative painting, Brown's work leaves much to the imagination. It also borrows from the popular culture of his day, for the melancholic theme of the woman faithfully waiting by the sea was a staple of late nineteenth-century sentimental poetry and parlor songs.

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