William Holman Hunt

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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William Holman Hunt

by John Ballantyne
oil on canvas, 1865
25 in. x 30 in. (635 mm x 763 mm)
Purchased, 1932
Primary Collection
NPG 2555

Sitterback to top

  • William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Pre-Raphaelite painter. Sitter in 29 portraits, Artist or producer of 2 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • John Ballantyne (1815-1897), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 9 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

This portraitback to top

This is one of a series of paintings of artists in their studios which Ballantyne exhibited in 1866.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Marsh, Jan, The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2013, p. 6 Read entry

    The artist is shown in his studio, wearing an Arab robe and cap from his travels in the Middle East. He is at work on a depiction of The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (1854-60), which was begun in Jerusalem and completed in London.

  • Marsh, Jan, Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2005, p. 8
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 321

Placesback to top

Events of 1865back to top

Current affairs

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is the first female to be awarded a doctor's licence. She is also involved in collecting signatures for the Manchester Suffrage Committee, the first suffrage organisation, formed this year. John Stuart Mill was also elected to parliament this year on the platform of women's suffrage.
Palmerston dies in October, and is replaced as leader of the Liberal government by his Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell.

Art and science

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is published, inspired by Carroll's relationship (as Oxford don Charles Dodgson) with his friend Henry George Liddell's daughter Alice.
Matthew Arnold publishes the first series of Essays in Criticism, a defining text in the development of English literature as an academic discipline.

International

In the American civil war, Robert E. Lee surrenders the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, leading to the surrender of the Confederacy's remaining field armies. A few days later, US President Abraham Lincoln is shot dead by Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth. Later this year slavery is officially abolished after years of fierce campaigning. In response, the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan is founded on Christmas Eve.

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