Till We Meet Again by Elspeth Young

Till We Meet Again


{ Jane Elizabeth Manning }
Pre-mounted Giclées on canvas (gatorboard)
High-grade canvas artwork reproductions pre-mounted to durable gatorboard for easy framing without glass.
12" x 16"$140.0012" x 22.5"$185.0018" x 24"$280.00
14" x 18"$175.0016" x 20"$215.00
Giclées on canvas (unmounted canvas roll)
Larger rolled canvas prints with a 2-inch margin for the customer to mount the print to stretcher bars at a local framing store or art center. No glass needed.
16" x 30"$228.0020" x 30"$278.0020" x 37.5"$340.0030" x 40"$528.00
20" x 24"$228.0018" x 33.75"$281.0024" x 36"$388.0030" x 56.25"$731.00
20" x 28"$261.0024" x 30"$328.0024" x 45"$478.0032.75" x 61.5"$867.00
Paper prints
High-grade art reproductions available on photo paper (in sizes 12x18 and larger) or on high-quality 9pt (100#) paper. Combined shipping available for most smaller sizes.
16" x 20"$73.0020" x 24"$100.0024" x 30"$143.0030" x 40"$225.00
18" x 24"$93.0020" x 30"$122.0024" x 36"$168.00
Other products
Other options including the original artwork, bookmarks, and limited edition prints.
Original oil painting$25,370.00 Sold
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When Joseph [Smith] went to Carthage [Illinois] to deliver himself up to the pretended requirements of the law, two or three days previous to his assassination [in June 1844], he said: 'I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men.

'I shall die innocent, and it shall yet be said of me--he was murdered in cold blood.'

Doctrine and Covenants 135:4

The story behind Till We Meet Again

The woman featured in this painting is heroic by any standard.  At the age of 21 and in company with close family and kin, Manning trekked the 800 miles from Wilton, Connecticut to Nauvoo, Illinois to join with Church members gathering in Illinois.  Destitute upon arriving in Nauvoo, she found true friends in Joseph and Emma Smith, who provided room, board, and a new wardrobe for their guest.  Jane drew close to the Smiths and resided there more than a year, helping the family with washing and other household chores.

She endured persecutions leveled at Church members in the 1840s, and when the Church and its members were driven from Nauvoo in 1846, Manning was among those who endured the mid-winter hardships of expulsion from Nauvoo as well as the ordeal of the 1300-mile trek to the desert valleys of the Rocky Mountains.  Selecting a moment in which to portray such a life was difficult, but out of all Manning endured perhaps the most poignant moment of grief came June 1844 when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred in Carthage, Illinois.

Manning once described Brother Joseph as "the finest man I ever saw on earth," a man of kindness and caring who "never passed me without shaking hands with me wherever he was...Every time he saw me, he would say, "God bless you.'"

This full-length portrait presents Manning as she might have appeared in the brilliant sunshine of that June day ("smitten and mourning" as one contemporary described Nauvoo's inhabitants), standing in the deathly hush as the creaking of the wagon bed moved slowly down the street, bringing home the marred and blood-stained bodies of Joseph and Hyrum.  "I liked to a died myself," said Manning.  "I will never forget that time of agony and sorrow."

The moment in this painting is the moment when Manning, like everyone in Nauvoo, stood at a crossroads.  Some turned away from the awful scenes and eventually fell away from the Church, but when Jane turned away to pick up the threads of a shattered life, she gave herself anew to that for which these brothers died and never did turn back.  All the heroism that followed, and there was much, flowed from the decision she made then, and kept making, through all the days and all the moments ever after.
God be with you till we meet again;
When life's perils thick confound you,
Put his arms unfailing round you.
God be with you till we meet again.
From "God Be With You Till We Meet Again," text by Jeremiah E. Rankin (1828-1904)

Symbolism in Till We Meet Again

While the darkness of the figure's dress signifies mourning, the colors of her outer wrap and work apron are inspired by the coloration of a mourning dove--symbolizing the Comforter as well as the hope and peace founded upon the resurrection.

Much of the area of the painting is engulfed in shadow, like the darkness that combined in the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  And in that darkness, we can see nothing of home or comfort or security, nothing of the hopes and dreams that were embodied in the founding of the city of Nauvoo in 1840 on the eastern shores of the Mississippi.

There is no gate in the fence by which to return to the past.  And the sunshine in the painting is not just the sunlight falling like tears on the streets of the city; but it further represents the searing sunshine bathing boundless prairies and treeless deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains where many who watched that day, as Jane did, would either be buried or would bury their own loved ones in shallow, frozen, unmarked graves that only wolves would ever find.  In that sense, the sunshine is also the same light by which night's curtain has been parted every day since then; days in which the great latter-day work begun by Joseph Smith has continued reaching out to fill the earth.  And in that latter sense, not only the sunlight in the painting, but the gate-less fence, hems the darkness in.  For all of the travails from that day to this are but the stirrings of the sunrise of the long-awaited Millennial Day toward which the prophets of all the ages have looked down.

The sinuous vine of red roses trailing behind the figure--Rosa gallica--was indigenous to western Illinois at the time of the martyrdom.  They symbolize the life of Joseph Smith, both for the glory and beauty of their bloom, as well as being a token of the traditional folk tune, "The Last Rose of Summer," listed among the Prophet's favorite songs by his good friend, Benjamin F. Johnson.
© By Elspeth Young, All Rights Reserved. You may not print, copy, or reproduce this artwork or make derivative works from it without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. For permissions, please review our FAQ page.



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Jane Elizabeth Manning

By Elspeth C. Young Biographical and other information appearing here, as well as links to other sites, are provided as a public service.
While we welcome feedback concerning this page and will do our best to consider and perhaps resolve anything thought to be in error;
time may not permit acknowledgment of inquiries and comments received, or correspondence concerning disputed details and perspectives.

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