The Interior of an English Cottage, 1828 (oil on panel)

Originally entitled 'The Gamekeeper's Cottage', when exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1828, the name was changed perhaps because of the unpopularity of gamekeepers. Prints after the picture were variously called 'The Home Expected' and 'The Anxious Wife'. All these titles suggest that the meaning of the picture hangs on the expected gamekeeper/husband: a young mother, seated at the window of a cottage, awaits the return of her husband who is hailing her from the back of his horse in the distance. The last light of the day tells us that he is home late from work. The family have obviously been keeping their spirits up: we may deduce that the young daughter has been reading aloud to her mother and baby brother, whom she has sent to sleep in his cot, but in the process she herself has also nodded off in her mother's lap (her finger still keeping the place in the book). The key symbol of this virtuous family is the hearth in which a fire has been kept alive, like the spirit of the home.