Both versions of New-risen Hope, the Tate (UK) and the Melbourne (Australia) versions, are dated by Annie ‘1904.’ However, The Magazine of Art mentions that “New Risen Hope” was on display at the New Gallery in 1903.

A trivial point, perhaps, but it does illustrate how dates on paintings should not be taken as absolute values. It may be that some paintings are worked on over a period of years, largely or wholly finished some time before and a date added later when presented for exhibition or sale. Equally, a work may well have been altered significantly after the supposed date of completion, so that the date can neither be relied on as a terminus ante quem.

Such evidence suggests to me that The Lady in White, signed and dated by Annie, 1878, is indeed Roses, described in The Manchester Evening News, 16 March 1877, although the description is not quite precise enough for this to be certain – so many of Annie’s painting are untraced, that there could well have been another “large and ambitious portrait of a lady in a white satin dress, with a bunch of red roses in her hand.”

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