Born in London, Edward Hughes (1851-1914) was a painter of romantic genre and historical subjects and was one of the leading watercolourists of the Victorian era. E. R. Hughes is best known for his fantastical watercolours such as Midsummer Eve and Night with her Train of Stars, yet initially he built a career as a portrait painter to the upper classes.

He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and was taught by his uncle, Arthur Hughes, and Holman Hunt, both eminent Pre-Raphaelite artists. He was also closely in touch with Edward Burne-Jones, who greatly admired Hughes’s watercolour technique. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1870, and at International Exhibitions in Venice, Dusseldorf and Munich. Hughes became a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1895, and was elected it's Vice-President for the years 1901 to 1903.