Daughters of the Mist

Evelyn De Morgan painted 'Daughters of the Mist' in 1909, a late work that demonstrates her sustained commitment to the allegorical and mythological subjects she had pursued throughout her career. The painting belongs to a tradition of mist or cloud personification that runs through Northern European Romantic painting, where atmospheric phenomena are given human form as spirits of the natural world. By 1909 De Morgan was in her late fifties, deeply engaged with Spiritualism alongside her husband William De Morgan — who had turned from pottery to novel-writing — and her allegorical subjects of this period carry an increasing quality of otherworldly longing. The De Morgan Foundation holds this canvas as part of the collection dedicated to her work, which is increasingly recognised as one of the significant bodies of British late-Victorian and Edwardian allegorical painting.

The oil on canvas applies De Morgan's mature allegorical technique to atmospheric, mist-inhabiting figures: the challenge of painting human forms that are partly dissolved into their atmospheric medium required careful handling of transitions between figure and background. Her luminous, clear colour style adapts to create a sense of figures that are both present and dissolving.