Edward Robert Hughes

Howard Ricketts (sale: Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1973, lot 37)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

London, Royal Watercolour Society, 1910

'Art thou pale for weariness,

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth'.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, To the Moon

The Goddess of the Moon, Selene was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and sister of Helios (the Sun) and Eos (the Dawn). There are various romantic myths involving her lovers Zeus, Pan and her own brother Helios but the most famous is her desire for the beautiful Aeolian shepherd Endymion to whom her cousin Zeus granted eternal youth but also eternal sleep. Selene descended from Olympus every night to be with Endymion and he fathered her fifty daughters which some writers equated to the fifty months of the Olympiad. 

Waning Moon is one of a series of watercolours by Hughes depicting Selene – each depicts a different aspect of her celestial form. It was exhibited alongside Waxing Moon, Radiant Moon and Shrouded Moon at the Royal Watercolour Society in 1910 (all were sold at Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1973). In 1911 Hughes showed another, Weary Moon at the winter exhibition of the Royal Watercolour Society (sold in these rooms 13 July 2107 lot 14 sold for £115,000) and in 1913 he painted a variant entitled Pack, Clouds, Away! And Welcome Day (Phillips, London, 2 November 1987, lot 152).