Love’s Shadow shows a woman, whose model is actually the artist Frederick Sandys’ wife, biting down on the head of a flower. It isn’t clear whether this Pre-Raphaelite work shows the personification of Love’s destructive force or whether the woman is the victim of it. It was painted in 1867 towards the end of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood era.
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys was a British painter and illustrator who often used his wife as a model in his Pre-Raphaelite portraits and Love’s Shadow is arguably his most famous work.
Frederick Sandys’ Love’s Shadow is in a private collection.