It was painted in London, where Burton later became Director of the National Gallery.

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.

[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’.