De Morgan Collection / De Morgan Centre, London, United Kingdom
Evelyn De Morgan’s oil painting The Love Potion has this great medieval aesthetic, and because there's a black cat resting right at the woman's feet, it's really easy to just assume she’s your stereotypical fairy-tale witch. But if you look past that initial impression, you'll see that De Morgan is doing something completely different here.
The figure, which was famously modeled by Jane Morris, isn't some devious villain hiding out in a dark dungeon. Instead, she’s sitting in a bright, beautifully lit study, completely focused on her work. If you check out the room around her, she's surrounded by specialized scientific tools, and the bookshelf behind her is packed with heavy academic texts by major philosophers and scientists.
She’s a brilliant, highly educated scholar deep in research, not just someone brewing a dark spell. Filled with gorgeous, vibrant Pre-Raphaelite details, this piece is actually part of a broader series De Morgan painted about the soul's journey toward spiritual enlightenment. It completely flips the classic "wicked sorceress" trope on its head, subverting the gender expectations of the time to create a quiet, powerful celebration of female wisdom and intellect.
Instead of a dark, subterranean dungeon, the subject (modeled by Jane Morris) is bathed in a bright, beautifully lit, and orderly study. She is surrounded by specialized scientific tools and an extensive library of heavy academic texts written by major philosophers and scientists. As part of De Morgan’s broader allegorical series on the soul's journey, the gold-colored potion represents a grander spiritual or intellectual refinement. Rather than plotting malice, she is depicted as a deeply focused, highly educated scholar engaged in rigorous scientific and metaphysical research. The vibrant Pre-Raphaelite colors and meticulous details dignify her work, framing her intellect not as something dangerous or forbidden, but as something masterful.
