William Holman Hunt - Isabella and the Pot of Basil [1867]

William Holman Hunt - Isabella and the Pot of Basil [1867], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

William Holman Hunt (April 2, 1827 – September 7, 1910) was a British painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Hunt's intended middle name was Hobman, which he disliked intensely. He chose to call himself Holman when he discovered that his middle name had been misspelled this way after a clerical error at his baptism at the church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Ewell. Though his surname is Hunt, his fame in later life led to the inclusion of his middle name as part of his surname, in the hyphenated form Holman-Hunt, by which his children were known.

Hunt married twice. After a failed engagement to his model Annie Miller, he married Fanny Waugh, who later modelled for the figure of Isabella. When she died in childbirth in Italy he sculpted her tomb up at Fiesole, having it brought down to the English Cemetery, beside the tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. His second wife, Edith, was Fanny's sister. At this time it was illegal in Britain to marry one's deceased wife's sister, so Hunt was forced to travel abroad to marry her. This led to a serious breach with other family members, notably his former Pre-Raphaelite colleague Thomas Woolner, who had married Fanny and Edith's third sister Alice.

William Holman Hunt - The Awakening Conscience [1853]

William Holman Hunt - The Awakening Conscience [1853], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Initially the painting would appear to be one of a momentary disagreement between husband and wife, or brother and sister, but the title and a host of symbols within the painting make it clear that this is a mistress and her lover. The woman's clasped hands provide a focal point and the position of her left hand emphasises the absence of a wedding ring. 

The model for the girl was Annie Miller, who sat for many of the Pre-Raphaelites and to whom Hunt was engaged until 1859. The look on the girl's face in the modern painting is not the look of pain and horror that viewers saw when the painting was first exhibited, and which shocked and repulsed many of the contemporary critics. The painting was bought by Thomas Fairbairn, a Manchester industrialist and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, but he found himself unable to bear looking on the woman's expression day-to-day, so persuaded Hunt to soften it.

[Oil on canvas, 762 x 559 mm]