The poignancy of the moment captured in EB Leighton's painting, "The Shadow" is immediately apparent: a knight, in full chain mail, stands in profile before a castle wall, absolutely still and unhurried, while his beloved traces the shadow he casts with a piece of charcoal vine. The presence of a ship in the harbor, though distant, creates the sense of his impending departure - likely to battle - and gives significance to her drawing as possibly the only remembrance she may have of him for some time to come.