The title of the painting is taken from Tennyson's poem, 'Mariana':
"She drew the casement-curtain by,
And glance athwart the glooming flats,
She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!""

However, such was the convention to which Hughes adhered, that a painting should have a 'subject' - ideally one taken from poetry, or mythology, or fables, or history - it is in fact simply a very fresh, direct and intimate painting of his wife of less than one year. While pulling back a curtain as in Tennyson’s lines, Tryphena looks anything other than weary and certainly not wishing she were dead. Instead she reveals wide, playful eyes, the hint of a grin, rosy cheeks and loose, slightly dishevelled hair. It captures her at the very beginning of their 60 years of married life.

Hughes had met Tryphena Foord in 1850, they were engaged in 1851, and married in 1855. At about this time he started his most famous painting, ‘April Love’ for which Tryphena was obviously the model. Completed in the following year, ‘April Love’ was described by John Ruskin as: “Exquisite in every way; lovely in colour, most subtle in the quivering expression of the lips, and sweetness of the tender face, shaken, like a leaf by winds upon its dew, and hesitating back into peace.” Indeed the great Pre-Raphaelite painter, Edward Burne-Jones proposed marriage to Georgiana MacDonald in front of the painting when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856

Curiously enough, in ‘April Love’ and in many of Hughes’ best-known works Tryphena plays a tragic role – a jilted lover, bereft sister, desperate fiancé – yet their marriage is universally considered a very happy one. Perhaps this security enabled Hughes to cast her in these melancholy works, but it is delightful to see her naturally - fresh, affectionate and uninhibited - in a work that is freed from any imposed tragic narrative.