While there was so much to admire in the paintings I saw yesterday at the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition the saddest one was Take your son, Sir by Ford Madox Brown. The painting remains unfinished. The baby in the picture is Brown's own son Arthur who died shortly before his first birthday. The death moved Brown so greatly that he abandoned the painting. The unfinished work with its white primed canvas offers the viewer an image of the child emerging from a womb-like cavity. I've seen many of the works in the exhibition before, but not this one. It really moved me. What do you think?
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