Time, Death and Judgment

George Frederick Watts exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy, London, in 1865 as Design for a Larger Picture. He later executed a number of versions of the same subject, which was identified by Mrs. Watts as Time bearing a scythe and pressing forward through the stream of life hand in hand with his mate, Death. The figure of Judgment follows behind, holding a sword. In the last half of his career, Watts, a celebrated Romantic painter, favored allegories like Time, Death, and Judgment, which were influenced by his studies of the heroic forms of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo and the warm palette of Titian.