De Morgan Collection, The De Morgan Foundation (Cannon Hall, Barnsley)
If you look at Evelyn De Morgan’s The Prisoner (painted between 1907 and 1908), you’re getting a deep dive into both her spiritual beliefs and her feminist politics. The painting centers on a solitary woman locked inside a stone cell, staring out a barred window, completely desperate for the sunlight outside. Every detail she threw in is super intentional. For example, the woman is wearing a really rich blue dress decorated with peacock feathers, which De Morgan used specifically as a symbol for immortality.
What’s really striking about how she portrays this isolation is the contrast. On one side, you have these massive, brutal iron bars keeping her trapped. But then look at her wrists. One is weighed down by a heavy metal shackle, but if you follow the chain attached to it, it literally dissolves into a delicate gold bracelet on her other arm. She’s blending physical confinement with physical adornment, completely blurring the line between a literal dungeon and a gilded cage.
On a spiritual level, the whole scene is a massive metaphor for the Soul. De Morgan genuinely believed the physical body was just a heavy, earthly shell holding us back. The woman represents the spirit, basically just waiting for death so it can finally drop its physical baggage and step into the light.
But you can't ignore the social commentary here either. Female captivity is a huge, recurring theme in De Morgan's work. So, beyond the spiritual side, The Prisoner acts as a painfully explicit statement about how women were kept in strict domestic confinement during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. What’s cool about the timing is that she painted this right when her husband, William, finally hit it big as a bestselling author. Because they were suddenly financially secure, Evelyn was totally free to paint these heavy, politically charged pieces without caring if they were commercial enough to sell.
Today, the piece lives at the De Morgan Foundation in England, and it still holds up as a beautifully layered reflection on both spiritual awakening and female emancipation.
The Prisoner suggests that confinement is not always created by walls alone. Although the woman is positioned beside a barred window, her expression is calm and contemplative rather than desperate, hinting that her greatest struggle may be emotional rather than physical. Her clasped hands, upward gaze, and the glimpse of the open landscape beyond the window create a powerful contrast between inner longing and distant freedom. The richly patterned textiles and jewellery imply that comfort and beauty cannot erase a sense of isolation. To me, the painting explores the invisible prisons people carry within themselves—grief, memory, duty, or unfulfilled desire. It reminds us that freedom is as much a state of mind as it is a physical condition, making the work feel timeless despite its historical setting.
