December 22 , 1915

The stereotype of the old woman as a witch is given a gritty freshness in this illustration by Arthur Hughes (January 27,  1832  t o December 22,  1915).  Our picture was one of the illustrations Hughes did for a book by George MacDonald: At the Back of the North Wind (1871). The title for this picture is "Old Sal At the Back of the North Wind'"





Arthur Hughes is considered one of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, even though, as this picture shows, his art lacked that miasma of somnolent  solipsism which typified so much Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood work.