It was voted by the Irish public as Ireland's favourite painting in 2012 from among 10 works shortlisted by critics.

The story was taken from a medieval Danish ballad translated as Hellalyle and Hildebrand by the painter's friend Whitley Stokes[2][3] and published in Fraser's Magazine, 1855, Vol.

Bending over the broidery frame, (And oh there liveth none to whom my sorrow may be told.)...

[4] The translation of the same poem by William Morris called Hildebrand And Hellelil is more famous: Hellelil sitteth in bower there, None knows my grief but God alone, And seweth at the seam so fair, I never wail my sorrow to any other one...[5] Original Scandinavian ballads are Stolts Hilla (Geijer & Afzelius #32) and Hilla Lilla (Ahlström No.

George Eliot noted about it: ‘The subject might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world – the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion’.