The Shulamite

'The Shulamite' of 1865, held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, takes its title from the Song of Solomon, identifying the female figure with the beloved described in that biblical love poem. Moore's use of this source is characteristic of his approach: the biblical reference lends the subject a degree of cultural legitimacy while the actual painting concerns itself not with any narrative content from the text but with the sensory presence of a beautiful figure in draped robes. The Walker Art Gallery was one of the major provincial venues for exhibiting ambitions in Victorian Britain, and the presence of this early work there points to Moore's national reputation even in his formative years. By 1865 Moore was still navigating his relationship to Pre-Raphaelitism and had not yet fully committed to the purely aesthetic programme of his mature period, making this an interesting transitional object in which decorative beauty and residual literary reference coexist.

The painting shows Moore at an early stage of developing his drapery syntax, with figures rendered in warm ivory and cream tones over a carefully prepared ground. The treatment of fabric already shows his interest in classical sources, with folds organised rhythmically rather than naturalistically, though the warmer palette anticipates his later refinement toward cooler harmonies.