15 Works, Today, April 2nd is artist William Holman Hunt's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #91

William Holman Hunt (1827 - 1910)

Detail; London Bridge on the Night of the Marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

65 x 98 cm (height x width)

Ashmolean Museum

William Holman Hunt (1827 - 1910)

London Bridge on the Night of the Marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

65 x 98 cm (height x width)

Ashmolean Museum

Holman Hunt was among the crowd on London Bridge on the night of 10 March 1863, celebrating the marriage of Princess Alexandra of Denmark to the future Edward VII. He made sketches of it, but did not complete this painting until 16 May 1864, retouching it in 1866. He was fascinated by the contrasts of natural and artificial light and by the 'Hogarthian humour' of the crowds. He introduced portraits of several friends and acquaintances, including Thomas Combe in a top hat on the extreme left, arm in arm with the artist himself; and Mrs Combe with Millais's father and brother and the artist Robert Braithwaite Martineau.The frame was designed by Hunt to combine emblems appropriate to a wedding and the arms of the royal families of Denmark and England. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt OM (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism. For Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. Of all the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt remained most true to their ideals throughout his career. 

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids, c. 1850

Oil on canvas

Height: 111 cm (43.7 in); Width: 141 cm (55.5 in)

Ashmolean Museum

Originally conceived as an entry on the theme 'An Act of Mercy' for a Gold Medal competition at the Royal Academy in 1849, this painting depicts an early incident in the history of the English church. A Christian family is hiding a priest from a crowd of heathens and Druids, who have already caught another priest in the background. The painting is full of symbolic allusions, in keeping with contemporary High Anglican thinking: the priest recalls Christ and his disciples, the child with the fur loincloth John the Baptist and the older youth squeezing grapes evokes the Eucharist. It was one of Hunt's earliest Pre-Raphaelite paintings and caused controversy when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850. More on this painting

After eventually entering the Royal Academy art schools, having initially been rejected, Hunt rebelled against the influence of its founder Sir Joshua Reynolds. He formed the Pre-Raphaelite movement in 1848, after meeting the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Along with John Everett Millais they sought to revitalise art by emphasising the detailed observation of the natural world in a spirit of quasi-religious devotion to truth. This religious approach was influenced by the spiritual qualities of medieval art, in opposition to the alleged rationalism of the Renaissance embodied by Raphael. He had many pupils including Robert Braithwaite Martineau.

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, c. 1868

Oil on canvas

Height: 187 cm (73.6 in); Width: 116 cm (45.6 in)

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818) is a narrative poem by John Keats adapted from a story in Boccaccio's Decameron (IV, 5). It tells the tale of a young woman whose family intend to marry her to "some high noble and his olive trees", but who falls for Lorenzo, one of her brothers' employees. When the brothers learn of this, they murder Lorenzo and bury his body. His ghost informs Isabella in a dream. She exhumes the body and buries the head in a pot of basil which she tends obsessively, while pining away. More on Isabella, or the Pot of Basil

The painting portrays Isabella, unable to sleep, dressed in a semi-transparent nightgown, having just left her bed, which is visible with the cover turned over in the background. She drapes herself over an altar she has created to Lorenzo from an elaborately inlaid prie-dieu over which a richly embroidered cloth has been placed. On the cloth is the majolica pot, decorated with skulls, in which Lorenzo's head is interred. Her abundant hair flows over the pot and around the flourishing plant, reflecting Keats's words that Isabella "hung over her sweet Basil evermore,/And moistened it with tears unto the core." Behind her, next to the doorway, are a pair of pattens, next to the edge of a cassone. More on this painting

Hunt married twice. After a failed engagement to his model Annie Miller, in 1861 he married Fanny Waugh, who later modelled for the figure of Isabella (See above). When, at the end of 1866, she died in childbirth in Italy, he sculpted her tomb at Fiesole, having it brought down to the English Cemetery in Florence, beside the tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He had a close connection with St. Mark's Church in Florence, and paid for the communion chalice inscribed in memory of his wife. His second wife, Edith, was Fanny's youngest sister. At the time it was illegal in Great Britain to marry one's deceased wife's sister, so the two of them travelled abroad and married at Neuchâtel (in francophone Switzerland) in November 1875. This led to a grave conflict with other family members, notably his former Pre-Raphaelite colleague Thomas Woolner, who had once been in love with Fanny and had married the middle sister, Alice Waugh.

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

The Hireling Shepherd, c. 1851

Oil on canvas

Height: 76.4 cm (30 in); Width: 109.5 cm (43.1 in)

Manchester Art Gallery

The Hireling Shepherd (1851) painting represents a shepherd neglecting his flock in favour of an attractive country girl to whom he shows a death's-head hawkmoth. The meaning of the image has been much debated.

The flock of sheep wander over a ditch into a wheat field. This violation of boundaries is paralleled by the shepherd's physical intrusions into the personal space of the young woman.

 Hunt used a local country girl Emma Watkins as a model. She was known as "the Coptic" by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood because of her exotic features. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt 1827–1910

The Awakening Conscience, c. 1853

Oil paint on canvas

762 × 559 mm

Tate

The Awakening Conscience, addresses the common Victorian narrative of the fallen woman. Trapped in a newly decorated interior, Hunt’s heroine at first appears to be a stereotype of the age, a young unmarried woman engaged in an illicit liaison with her lover. This is made clear by the fact that she is partially undressed in the presence of a clothed man and wears no wedding ring.

The young woman springs up from her lover’s lap. She is reminded of her country roots by the music the man plays (the sheet music to Thomas Moore’s Oft in the Stilly Night sits on the piano), causing her to have an awakening prick of conscience. The symbolism of the picture makes her situation as a kept woman clear—the enclosed interior, the cat playing with a bird under the chair, and the man’s one discarded glove on the floor all speak to the precarious position the woman has found herself in. However, as she stands up, a ray of light illuminates her from behind, almost like a halo, offering the viewer hope that she may yet find the strength to redeem herself. More on this painting

Hunt's works were not initially successful, and were widely attacked in the art press for their alleged clumsiness and ugliness. He achieved some early note for his intensely naturalistic scenes of modern rural and urban life, such as The Hireling Shepherd (See above) and The Awakening Conscience (See above) . However, it was for his religious paintings that he became famous, initially The Light of the World (1851–1853) (See below), now in the chapel at Keble College, Oxford, England.

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

The Light of the World, c. between 1851 and 1856

Oil on canvas

Height: 49.8 cm (19.6 in); Width: 26.1 cm (10.2 in)

Manchester Art Gallery 

The Light of the World (1851–1853) is an allegorical painting representing the figure of Jesus preparing to knock on an overgrown and long-unopened door, illustrating Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me". According to Hunt: "I painted the picture with what I thought, unworthy though I was, to be divine command, and not simply a good subject." The door in the painting has no handle, and can therefore be opened only from the inside, representing "the obstinately shut mind". The painting was considered by many to be the most important and culturally influential rendering of Christ of its time. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

The Scapegoat, c. 1854

Oil on canvas

Height: 86 cm (33.8 in); Width: 136 cm (53.5 in)

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, United Kingdom

The painting depicts the "scapegoat" described in the Book of Leviticus. On the Day of Atonement, a goat would have its horns wrapped with a red cloth – representing the sins of the community – and be driven off.

This painting was the only major work completed by Hunt during his first trip to the Holy Land, to which he had travelled after a crisis of religious faith. Hunt intended to experience the actual locations of the Biblical narratives as a means to confront the relationship between faith and truth. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, c. 1854/1855

Height: 857 mm (33.74 in); Width: 1,410 mm (55.51 in)

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple is a painting intended as an ethnographically accurate version of the subject traditionally known as "Christ Among the Doctors", an illustration of the child Jesus debating the interpretation of the scripture with learned rabbis. The passage illustrated is from the Gospel of Luke, 2:41.

Hunt depicts the moment at which Mary and Joseph find Jesus, while the rabbis in the temple are reacting in various contrasting ways to his discourse, some intrigued, others angry or dismissive. This depiction of contrasting reactions is part of the tradition of the subject, as evidenced in Albrecht Dürer's much earlier version. Hunt would also have known Bernardino Luini's version of the subject in the National Gallery. At the time this was ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

The Shadow of Death, c. between 1870 and 1873

Oil on canvas

Height: 214.2 cm (84.3 in); Width: 168.2 cm (66.2 in)

Manchester Art Gallery

The Shadow of Death is a religious painting by William Holman Hunt, on which he worked from 1870 to 1873, during his second trip to the Holy Land. It depicts Jesus as a young man prior to his ministry, working as a carpenter. He is shown stretching his arms after sawing wood. The shadow of his outstretched arms falls on a wooden spar on which carpentry tools hang, creating a "shadow of death" prefiguring the crucifixion. His mother Mary is depicted from behind, gazing up at the shadow, having been looking into a box in which she has kept the gifts given by the Magi. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)

The Lady of Shalott, c. 1886–1905

Oil on panel

H 44.4 x W 34.1 cm

Manchester Art Gallery

The Lady of Shalott depicts a scene from Tennyson's 1833 poem, "The Lady of Shalott". 

In Tennyson's poem, the Lady of Shalott is confined to a tower on an island near Camelot, cursed not to leave the tower or look out of its windows. She weaves a tapestry, viewing the outside world only through reflections in a mirror behind her. The painting depicts the pivotal scene in the third part of the poem: the Lady spies "bold Sir Launcelot" in her mirror. The sight of the handsome knight and the sound of him singing draws her away from her loom to the window, yarn still clinging around her knees, bringing down the curse upon her as "the mirror crack'd from side to side". She leaves the tower to take a boat across the river, but meets her death before she reaches Camelot. More on this painting

In the mid-1850s Hunt travelled to the Holy Land in search of accurate topographical and ethnographical material for further religious works, and to employ his "powers to make more tangible Jesus Christ’s history and teaching"; there he painted The Scapegoat (See above), The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (See above), and The Shadow of Death (See above), along with many landscapes of the region. Hunt also painted many works based on poems, such as Isabella (See above) and The Lady of Shalott (See above). He eventually built his own house in Jerusalem.

William Holman Hunt  (1827–1910)

Nazareth, c. 1861

Watercolour

I have no further description, at this time

Hunt left Jerusalem on October 17, 1855, and reached Nazareth six days later, recording enthusiastically in his diary : “Sweet Nazareth of Galilee—never did I imagine thee so lovely in all the many times that I have tried to picture the abode of our Lord.” This watercolor was largely painted on the spot between October 24 and 27. More on this painting

Hunt left London in January 1854, with Palestine being his intended destination. His artist friend Thomas Seddon had departed a month or so earlier, with the plan that they should meet in Cairo before travelling on to the Holy Land. They were to camp at Giza.

William Holman Hunt O.M., R.W.S., A.R.S.A.

Great Pyramid of Cheops, c. 1854

Watercolour

17 by 25cm., 6¾ by 9¾in.

Private collection

Holman Hunt’s watercolour shows the Great Pyramid of Cheops, at Giza, viewed from the east. Immediately in front of the main structure are seen the two smaller shapes of the so-called Queens’ Pyramids. The foreground consists of an expanse of water, through which figures wade, and with ducks swimming. The other Giza Pyramids, those of Chephren and Mycerinus, as well as the Sphinx, are out of view to the composition’s left side. More on this painting

Hunt spent some weeks working in Cairo, but returned to Giza in April. Of the drawings of Egypt that Hunt made in the course of these two desert sojourns in the early part of 1854, the best known is that entitled The Sphinx, Giza, looking towards the Pyramids of Saqqara (Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (See below). In May 1854 Hunt, still accompanied by Seddon, moved on to Palestine, where Hunt painted The Scapegoat (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) (See above).

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)

The Sphinx, Gizeh, Looking towards the Pyramids of Sakhara, c. 1854

Watercolor on paper,

35.6 x 25.4 cm (14.02" x 10")

Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, United Kingdom

The colossal Sphinx, near the group of pyramids at Jizeh, which lay half buried in the sand, was uncovered and measured by Caviglia. It is about 150 feet long, and 63 feet high. The body is made out of a single stone; but the paws, which are thrown out about fifty feet in front, are constructed of masonry.

Holman Hunt and Thomas Seddon's watercolours of the Sphinx painted in Egypt in 1854 inaugurated a new dimension of Pre-Raphaelitism. Prior to  this the Pre-Raphaelite interest in landscape was in nature, not views of places, but Hunt proclaimed that the movement’s next stage should be devoted to producing ‘faithful pictures of scenes interesting from historical considerations or from the strangeness of the subject itself’. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)

The Afterglow in Egypt

Oil on canvas

82 x 37 cm

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, England

In this painting an Egyptian woman dressed in beautiful clothes and jewellery carries a crate of pigeons on her head and a beautiful green vessel in her right hand. She gazes out at us and stands barefoot in a fertile landscape close to the water's edge. The figure was read by Hunt's contemporaries as a kind of Egyptian goddess of plenty. Hunt believed that agriculture was the only aspect of the once-great civilization that had survived in Egypt. More on this painting

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)

The Lantern Maker's Courtship (Cairo Street Scene), c. 1854–1861

Oil on canvas

H 54.8 x W 34.7 cm

Birmingham Museums Trust

He eventually had to relinquish painting because failing eyesight meant that he could not achieve the quality that he wanted. His last major works, including a large version of The Light of the World hanging in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, were completed with the help of his assistant, Edward Robert Hughes.

Hunt died on 7 September 1910 and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. More on William Holman Hunt

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