Alice Gertrude Waugh, Mrs Thomas Woolner (1845 - 1912)

This 1864 portrait of Alice Gertrude Waugh, who married the sculptor Thomas Woolner and became Mrs Massingberd, documents Hughes's close connection to the Pre-Raphaelite social network. Thomas Woolner was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood — the sculptor among the original seven — and his wife Alice was thus part of the innermost circle of the movement's social world. Hughes's close friendship with Woolner made him a natural choice as portraitist for his wife. The portrait's National Trust holding suggests it remained within the family before eventually passing to the Trust. The 1864 date places this portrait in Hughes's mature period, when his handling of female portraiture combined the Pre-Raphaelite precision of his earlier subjects with a warmer, more relaxed personal observation. Alice Woolner appears in several Victorian sources as a respected presence within the Brotherhood's extended social circle.

The portrait on canvas employs the careful observational approach Hughes brought to all his portrait subjects, with particular attention to Alice Woolner's face and expression. The composition, framing, and treatment of dress and setting would reflect the conventions of middle-class Victorian portraiture while maintaining the distinctively Pre-Raphaelite quality of precise, unsentimental observation.