Hunt, WILLIAM HOLMAN, painter, was born in London, 2d April 1827. In his early years he was engaged in business, but in 1845 he was admitted a student of the Royal Academy. In the following year he exhibited his first picture, 'Hark!' a child holding a watch to her ear; this was followed by scenes from Dickens and Scott, and by the more important 'Flight of Madeline and Porphyro,' from Keats' Eve of St Agnes (1848). At this period Mr Hunt shared a studio with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the pair, along with Millais and a few other earnest young painters, inaugurated the 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,' of which the members aimed at detailed and uncompromising truth to nature in their rendering of visible things, and at a vivid and unconventional realisation in their treatment of imaginative subjects. In 1850 Mr Hunt contributed to The Germ, the short-lived magazine of the brotherhood, two etched subjects illustrating Woolner's poem 'My beautiful Lady,' and at a later period he designed various woodcuts, in particular a remarkable series for the illustrated Tennyson of 1857. The first of the painter's works executed in the Pre-Raphaelite manner was 'Rienzi vowing to avenge the Death of his Brother' (1849), in which the principal figure was painted from Rossetti. It was followed by 'A Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Pursuit of the Druids' (1850); 'Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus,' from the Two Gentlemen of Verona (1851); 'The Hireling Shepherd' (1852); and 'Claudio and Isabella,' a tragic and impressive prison-scene from Measure for Measure (1853)—works very fresh and original in conception, and carried out with the most careful elaboration; while 'Our English Coasts,' known also as 'The
Strayed Sheep' (1853), was a remarkable effort in landscape art, realising with exceptional power an effect of vivid sunlight, and combining in a wonderful manner detail and definition with a sense of distance and atmosphere. 'The Light of the World' (1852-54), of which a smaller replica was executed in 1856, ranks as one of the most impressive symbolical works of the century; it is now in the chapel of Keble College, Oxford. 'The Awakened Conscience' aimed to point a moral by means of a scene from modern life. On the completion of the last-named picture in the beginning of 1854 Mr Hunt started for Palestine, with the intention of studying eastern life, and realising the incidents of the biblical history with the closest possible accuracy to local colouring and the surroundings amid which they occurred. The result of several prolonged visits to the East appeared in 'The Scapegoat' (1856); 'The Finding of Christ in the Temple' (1860), presented in 1896 to the Birmingham Art Gallery; 'The Shadow of Death' (1874), now in the Corporation Gallery, Manchester; and 'The Triumph of the Innocents' (1875-85), executed in two versions; while the passionate and splendidly-coloured 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil' was the result of a visit to Florence in 1867. In 1881 he painted a portrait of Professor Sir Richard Owen; in 1888-89 'The Choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford, singing the May Day Hymn;' and in 1899 the 'Miracle of Sacred Fire at Jersalem.' In 1886 he contributed to the Contemporary Review a series of autobiographical papers; and in the same year over thirty of his works were exhibited in the Fine Arts Society's rooms.