The De Morgan Collection, The De Morgan Foundation (Featured in the Watts Gallery highlights).
If you take a look at Evelyn De Morgan’s Sleep and Death: The Children of Night (finished in 1883), you're instantly met with a really heavy, complex take on mortality. The whole scene centers around a female figure—the Lady of the Night—who has this massive dark cloak dramatically billowing out behind her in the wind. Resting against her are two young boys, but they aren't just kids. They're literal personifications of Sleep and Death.
The details here are super intentional. The boy representing Sleep is just resting peacefully against her knee, giving off this totally tranquil vibe. But the boy representing Death? He is staring directly out of the canvas right at you. If you look closely, he's also holding an extinguished torch, which is a classic, powerful symbol for the end of a life force.
According to scholars at the De Morgan Foundation, this piece was likely directly inspired by the tragically high child mortality rates during the 19th century. It wasn't just a one-off topic for De Morgan, either. She was actually deeply preoccupied with themes of mortality, the darkness of night, and the concept of death throughout her entire career.
Interestingly, this painting has a bit of a mixed-up history. De Morgan’s own sister and biographer, Wilhelmina Stirling, accidentally published it under the wrong title: Sleep and Dreams, The Children of Night. But if you check the official catalogue from its 1883/1884 exhibition, it was correctly listed as Sleep and Death. When you look at the heavy iconography—especially that extinguished torch—the original title makes total sense.
The painting titled Sleep and Death by Morgan has vulnerable children sheltered beneath the Lady of the Night. Sleep leans gently against her knee, suggesting comfort and temporary rest. Death, by contrast, meets the viewer's gaze while holding an extinguished torch, an enduring symbol of life extinguished. This contrast dissolves the rigid boundary between sleep and death, inviting reflection on their intimate relationship. Created during a century marked by high child mortality, the work reflects Victorian anxieties surrounding loss. De Morgan rejects violent or grotesque imagery. She humanises death through innocence by making grief appear familiar. The maternal presence of the Lady of the Night softens the inevitability of mortality without diminishing its permanence. The painting ultimately questions whether death should be feared or accepted as part of the natural rhythm of existence, revealing De Morgan's symbolic language as both emotionally restrained and philosophically profound.
