Information

Hunt constantly returned to the live model in his work, recalling in his autobiography, the circumstances in which this study is likely to have been produced: 'A life school has been started in Kensington, to meet three evenings a week; the early list of members included Thomas Oldham Barlow, Augustus Egg, Val Prinsep and John Phillip, to which Mulready was eventually added'. William Mulready (1786-1863), whom the Pre-Raphaelites respected, and who was sympathetic to their cause, was famous as a perennial student of the life class. This drawing of Hunt's is very close to Mulready's favoured pen and ink technique. This is a rare example of an extant life drawing by Hunt that is not directly related to a painting.

  • Presented by the Friends of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1985.
  • © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Makers

Association Artist Organisation
Artist William Holman Hunt -

Inscriptions

Type Position(s) Method Date(s) Notes
Whhunt/ [?]Colman 58
Signature and date bottom left Handwritten 1858 Ink.
 

Exhibitions

Catalogue No. Venue Date(s)
Exposed: The Victorian Nude
23 Tate Britain, London 2001-11-01 - 2003-01-27
23 Haus Der Kunst, Munich 2002-02-18 - 2002-05-26
23 Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York 2002-09-06 - 2003-01-05
 

Literature

Author(s) Date(s) Publisher Pages
Two English Drawings
1949 Miscellanea Leo van Puyvelde, Brussels pp. 250-53.
 
William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonne
Judith Bronkhurst 2006 Yale University Press, New Haven and London D 179.

Provenance

H. M. Calman Gallery; bought by Professor Thomas Patrick Bodkin in 1946; Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1946.

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