Love’s Messenger by Marie Spartali Stillman may look like a woman feeding her leashed pet dove by an open window, but it’s a lot more scandalous than that.

As you may or may not have inferred from the title of the piece, this dove is actually bringing this woman a note from her lover. We can infer this through the interpretation of a number of symbols, something the the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was super into. The first is that, duh, the woman (modeled after Stillman’s daughter Effie) is clutching the note to her chest, which is where her heart is. This is not something one does when they get a note from their mother, or grandmother, or any relative really, so we are forced to believe that this woman has her eye on a hottie. The second is the rose, also next to her chest, which is a symbol of romance and passion. Not exactly rocket science here. The third is the dove itself. Dove’s are generally associated with Venus, the goddess of love and are representative of monogamy as well. And while we’re on the subject of gods and goddesses, you’ll notice that the embroidery that the woman was working on before being interrupted by the dove depicts a blindfolded Cupid. At first, my conclusion was that her lover must be ugly, but it’s more about keeping Cupid, whose arrows tend to be unpredictable, away from their love. Last but not least, is the symbolism of the ivy. Ivy represents fidelity and romantic attachment. So the message that the woman is in love is beaten into us with blatant symbolism. However this work is still classified as a “problem picture” because we have to see all of these symbols and fill in the narrative ourselves… not that that’s particularly difficult.

This painting is the cream of Stillman’s crop, but this did not mean that it was a hot commodity. Stillman was still a woman, let us recall. This painting was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1885, but then sat around for several years. untouched in Effie’s studio. In the 1890s, Stillman redid the background of the work, which was just what it needed to be swooped up by American collector and (not so) coincidentally a big time Delaware Art Museum donor, Samuel Bancroft. If only Stillman could see her works now and know that she hangs (pun intended) with the Pre-Raphaelites just as well as any man could.