Little Red Riding Hood

Watts painted 'Little Red Riding Hood' around 1890, late in his career, taking a subject from fairy tale that might seem surprising for an artist of his philosophical seriousness — but which in fact connected with his sustained concern for childhood vulnerability and the moral threats that attend growing up. The fairy tale tradition had been reassessed throughout the nineteenth century as a vehicle for psychological and moral truths, and for a painter who had spent decades exploring allegories of hope, love, death, and aspiration, a fairy tale about a child navigating danger had clear allegorical potential. The Birmingham Museums Trust's canvas shows Watts applying his mature atmospheric technique to a more accessible subject, perhaps reflecting his awareness in old age of the importance of reaching broader audiences. The late date also suggests a moment of playful creative freedom — a painter of seventy trying something he had not previously attempted.

The oil on canvas employs Watts's mature soft-atmospheric technique, giving the fairy tale subject a dreamlike quality that elevates it above mere illustration. The handling is warm and painterly rather than the sharp illustrative finish common in Victorian fairy-tale imagery, reflecting his unchanged commitment to the qualities he valued in the Old Masters over precise narrative description.