Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource : The Collection

Portrait of William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1853

Accession number: 1904P392

Pencil over grey wash with scratching.

Width: 206 mm

Height: 274 mm

Head and shoulders of a suited male, with head slightly turned to the left; set in oval

Information

On 12 April 1853, at Rossetti's suggestion, the remaining members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood met for breakfast in Millais's studio. There they drew portraits of each other, to send out to Thomas Woolner in Australia; his emigration in 1852, along with Edward Bateman's and Bernhard Smith's, had inspired Ford Madox Brown's famous painting 'The Last of England' (in Birmingham's collection). Rossetti's drawing of Hunt captures that artist's slightly solemn and earnest character.

Purchased and presented by subscribers, 1903.
© Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Makers

Association	Artist	Organisation
Artist	Dante Gabriel Rossetti	-

Inscriptions

Type	Position(s)	Method	Date(s)	Notes
12 April 1853. D G Rossetti (artist's hand) / to Thomas Woolner / Edward Bateman / Bernhard Smith [another hand]
Inscription	bottom right	Handwritten	-	Pencil

Exhibitions

Catalogue No.	Venue	Date(s)
-
101	Russell-Coates Art Gallery, Bournemouth	1951-06-04 - 1951-08-07

-
40	Royal Academy of Arts, London	1973 - 1973

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
124	Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo	1990-09-22 - 1990-11-14

Christina Rossetti: 1830-1894
no. cat.	National Portrait Gallery, London	1994-11-18 - 1995-02-12

Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
17	Walker Art Gallery	2003-10-16 - 2004-01-18
17	Van Gogh Museum	2004-02-27 - 2004-06-06

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
-	Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool	2003-10-16 - 2004-01-18
-	Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam	2004-02-27 - 2004-06-06

Literature

Author(s)	Date(s)	Publisher	Pages
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: an Illustrated Memorial of his Art and Life
H C Marillier	1899	George Bell and Sons, London	no. 316.

City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: Catalogue of the Permanent Collection of Drawings
A E Whitley	1939	Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby	p. 350.

'Portraits to Australia'
R Ormond	January 1967	Apollo	pp. 25-27.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882, The Paintings and Drawings: A Catalogue Raisonne
Virginia Surtees	1971	Oxford, Clarendon Press	vol. 1, no. 341, pp. 169-70; vol. 2, pl. 406.

Pre-Raphaelite Drawings: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Andrea Rose	1977	The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London	no. 3B10.

Pre-Raphaelite Portraits
Andrea Rose	1981	Oxford Illustrated Press, Yeovil	p. 91.

Christie's Sale Catalogue, 16 October 1981
	1981	Christie's, London	p. 31.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Edwin Becker, Elizabeth Prettejohn, Julian Treuherz	2003	Waanders, Zwolle	p. 150.