Pauline in a Yellow Dress

Pauline in a Yellow Dress doesn’t sound promising. It’s a portrait of a wife, the artist’s own. It was described by the Daily Mail as the ‘Mona Lisa of 1944’. At first this appears a little OTT, yet when beholding it, one becomes captivated with Pauline’s beauty. Even the little dog she holds gazes up to admire her loveliness.

The painting was controversial at the time. It was purchased for a large sum during the Second World War. This was not well received by the proud people of Preston who felt that the money might be better spent elsewhere. They and their countrymen were making huge sacrifices- financial and otherwise- in the nation’s battle against Hitler. The subject of the painting is clearly a well-off woman, wearing beautiful clothes and makeup at a time when clothing was rationed. The 1930s dress, now purchased by the gallery, is made from good quality and bright viscose fabric, overprinted with a black geometric design. On it are black velvet bows and buttons which in the painting are unfastened.

To stem the criticism, the management of Preston’s Harris Gallery publicly declared that the picture summed up the reason they were fighting the war. Its beauty and charm were in stark contrast to the ugliness of the harsh greys and violent scarlets that awaited a Britain defeated by Germany.

The curator informed me that when Sir James Gunn painted his wife, Pauline Miller, she was already terminally ill. Although she would live another six years after the painting was finished, her beauty and enchanting eyes were already hiding the mortality from which she could not escape. This earthly life is so horribly short and our beauty so fleeting; thank God, the Christian has so much more to come. In Christ, we live forever and share His beauty, which never fades with age nor becomes marred by malady.

Psalm 103:15-16:

As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Song of Solomon 2:1:

“I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.”