The Long Engagement by Arthur Hughes

The Long Engagement (1859) by Arthur Hughes. Oil on canvas. Birmingham Museum and Art
Gallery, UK. Image source Birmingham Museums Trust (open access)

Sometimes love can be frustrated: sometimes it has to wait until conditions are just right before it
can blossom.

Arthur Hughes’ painting, titled The Long Engagement, made in 1859, has within it a wonderfully
poignant detail that illustrates the predicament of the two sweethearts depicted. On the trunk of
the tree, the name “Amy” has been scored into the bark, only to be half-covered by growing ivy
leaves.

Detail from ‘The Long Engagement’ (1859) by Arthur Hughes. Oil on canvas. Birmingham
Museum and Art Gallery, UK. Image source Birmingham Museums Trust (open access)

This delicate symbol hints at the wider subject of the work: time threatening to overtake the first
flush of romance. It is unlikely that the name “Amy” was chosen by chance. The name comes
from the Old French, Amée, meaning “beloved”, a vernacular form of the Latin Amata.

The wider image shows two engaged sweethearts meeting beneath the boughs of a tree. Yet their
betrothal is a long one. From his clothing, the man can be identified as a member of the clergy —
a curate, who assists the work of the parish priest. It was a low-paid position, and provides the
reason for the extended engagement, since the parents of the girl have not allowed her to marry
until he has secured a better paying position in the church.
What the artist has depicted is an aspect of English Victorian society (one that is perhaps not so
foreign to us today) that reflected the importance of financial stability as a basis for marriage. In
short, the painting tells a story, one which a Victorian audience would have taken great pleasure
in deciphering.

They would have understood by the manner in which the engaged couple are huddled nervously
beneath the tree — their own private tryst — and how they had been to these woods before.
Their rendezvous was once celebrated by the carving of the woman’s name into the tree bark, but
now ivy has grown over the name, hinting that the engagement is in doubt.