Mrs Macloghlin
- Artist: Sir Alfred Gilbert
- Date: 1906–7
- Medium: Bronze on marble base
- Dimensions: object: 438 x 216 x 190 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Mrs Macloghlin” by Sir Alfred Gilbert, finished between 1906 and 1907. The sculpture is a bronze bust set on a simple brown marble base, a material choice that ties the figure to the earth while allowing the metal’s subtle play of light to highlight Eliza Macloghlin’s features.
The artist met Mrs Eliza Macloghlin in 1905 when she commissioned a monument for her husband, the surgeon Edward Macloghlin. Working closely with Gilbert on that memorial, Eliza fell deeply in love with him; their relationship was as passionate and intense as the sculpture itself. You can see this energy in the sitter’s pose—an ecstatic stance that almost appears to move—and in the little putti that seem to writher around her shoulders.
The back of the bust carries a Latin inscription: “Alas! The fleeting years glide by!” A nice reminder of how quickly time passes, perhaps echoing Eliza’s own brief life. After their relationship ended in 1907, when she smashed the windows of his studio during a quarrel over the monument’s completion time, Eliza gifted this piece to the gallery in 1915.
So here you have a work that captures not only a portrait but also the emotions and drama of an early‑twentieth‑century affair. The bronze casts its warm sheen while the marble base grounds it—an elegant dialogue between light and stone.
See it in person
Mrs Macloghlin is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
