Eve [Eve Overcome by Remorse]. 1885. Oil on canvas. 30 x 43 inches (76.8 x 109.2 cm). Private collection, image courtesy of Christie's (right click disabled; not to be downloaded).
This early work by Merritt is perhaps her best-known painting next to Love Locked Out. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885, no. 126, and hung on the line, a great honour for a young female artist. It shows Eve seated on the ground in the Garden of Eden remorseful for having brought about the Fall of Man. A large apple tree, presumably representing the tree of knowledge of good and evil, forms much of the background and the apple from which the serpent has tempted her to take a bite is displayed prominently in the right foreground. According to Merritt in her memoirs: "possibly the best appreciation ever received was on Show Sunday [the open day for visiting artists' studios], in my own studio, when a little four-year-old girl said, 'She's sorry.' Eve did express what I intended, so that even a child could understand" (qtd. Gorokhoff 146-47).
The painting gave Merritt an opportunity to display her talents by the skilful way she has painted an academic nude in a difficult pose. As with Love Locked Out she was again influenced by G.F. Watts, in this case his Eve Tempted. Merritt's painting was purchased at the Royal Academy exhibition by the well-known architect Alfred Waterhouse. The painting was subsequently exhibited at the Art Palace at the World's Columbian Fair and Exposition held in Jackson Park in Chicago in 1893, no. 330, where it was awarded a medal.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
When the painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1885 it was, not surprisingly, extensively reviewed although the reviews were decidedly mixed. A critic for the Art Journal praised its drawing and colour while finding the pose unconvincing: "Mrs. Merritt's Eve (126) strains too much after effect - the attitude is one which is scarcely ever taken to represent either remorse or despair, and consequently the work owes its success almost entirely to its drawing and colour" (257). F.G. Stephens writing in the Athenaeum was definitely unimpressed and wrote a scathing review: "The Eve (126) of Mrs. Merritt is a dull and incompetent study from the nude, apparently made in a painting school, and has not the smallest technical claim to a place on the line at the Royal Academy. It is unfortunate for the lady that her shortcomings are here made conspicuous" (667). A critic for The Spectator was also not impressed and failed even to grasp the obvious meaning of the picture:
Mrs. Merritt's Eve is a nude figure of a woman sitting on the ground with her legs crossed, her head bent down upon her knees, and her arms clasped around her ankles. Why such a position should be chosen, and why it is significant of Eve, the Academicians who hung it, and Mrs. Merritt herself, probably know; it seems to us simply a rather poor life-study in a very unfortunate position. A doubled-up body with no face, and with even its extremities half hidden, is a bad subject for a picture. [785]
Despite its detractors some critics actually liked the work. Henry Blackburn in Academy Notes referred to Eve as: "An important study by this artist" (7). A reviewer for The Illustrated London News was also appreciative, despite getting her sex and the number of the painting incorrect: "Mr. Merritt's Eve (176) – in the first moment of horror-stricken remorse – are among the most noteworthy works of this room" (481). Perhaps the most favourable review, however, came from Harry Quilter in the Times. He was certainly impressed with the painting, comparing her work to that of the French artist Jean-Jacques Henner: "The picture was a remarkable performance and very much more than a good study of the nude. Several times in the past we have had occasion to mention Mrs. Merritt, both as a painter of the nude figure and as an etcher; but she has never done anything so fine as this Eve." (10).
Link to Related Material
Bibliography
"Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator LVIII (13 June 1885): 784-85.
Beresford, Richard. Victorian Visions. Nineteenth-Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000. 92-93.
Blackburn, Henry Ed. Academy Notes 1885. London: Chatto and Windus (1885): 7 & 28.
"Anna Lea Merritt (1844-1930): Eve." Eve. Web. 9 June 2025.
Gorokhoff, Galina Ed. Love Locked Out; The Memoir of Anna Lea Merritt with A Checklist of Her Works. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1981. 146-47.
Important Victorian & British Impressionist Art. London: Christie's (11 July 2013): lot 5.
Quilter, Harry. "The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Times (2 May 1885): 10.
"The Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LXXXVI (9 May 1885): 481.
"The Royal Academy. III – Figure Painters" The Art Journal XLVII (1885): 257-58.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3004, (23 May 1885): 666-68.
Created 9 June 2025