The Knight's Return Home from the Wars

One of several processional scenes planned by the artist, one of the Liverpool Pre-Raphaelites. Windus was active until the 1860s, when criticism by John Ruskin (1819 - 1900) and the death of his wife Mary reduced his enthusiasm and drive. Subsequently he mainly made landscape sketches for his private use, later destroying many of these. This is probably a sketch for an oil painting that was never carried out. The second curator of the Walker Art Gallery, Edward Dibdin, described it in 1899 as 'an exquisitely suggestive little watercolour blot'. It was previously owned by Windus's friend and fellow Liverpool artist, Daniel Williamson.