Fanny Waugh Hunt

Artist William Holman Hunt (British, 1827-1910)

Place of OriginFlorence, Italy; London, England

Date1866-1868

Dimensions40 15/16 x 28 3/4 in. (104 x 73 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1977.34

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 32

Label TextPersonal tragedy tinges this portrait. Fanny Waugh Hunt, wife of artist William Holman Hunt, died before her husband had completed her portrait. The painting was begun in Florence, Italy, during late summer of 1866, where Fanny posed for Hunt behind a chair that concealed her pregnancy. Their son was born in October; Fanny died two months later of complications from the delivery. After returning to London, the grieving Hunt continued the portrait with the aid of his memory and a photograph. Insistent on accurate backgrounds and props, he retrieved from Florence Fanny’s paisley shawl, purple dress, and cameo brooch. The rich interior features many objects of upper-class “artistic” taste: the Chinese porcelain vase and gold mirror frame, Venetian glass bowl and chandelier, Persian pottery dish, and elegantly framed watercolors. Many of these objects are seen through the multiple, receding mirror reflections, which seem to evoke both eternity and the dimming of memory with time.Published References

Rossetti, W. M., Rossetti Papers, 1862-1870, London, 1903, p. 305.

Hunt, W. H., Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 2nd ed., London, 1913, II, pp. 198, 122, repr. p. 197.

Hunt, Diana Holman, My Grandmothers and I, 1960, repr. p. 100.

Brookner, Anita, "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions: London," Burlington Magazine, vol. 103, no. 705, Dec. 1961, p. 524

Fischer Fine Art Ltd., The Bourgeois Paradise: Important Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, 1866-1912, London, 1978, repr. p. (20).

"La chronique des arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 91, no. 1310, March 1978, p. 52.

"New Accessions," Apollo, vol. 108, no. 201, Nov. 1978, p. 347, repr.

"For the Record," Art Gallery, vol. 21, no. 6, Aug./Sept. 1978, p. 16.

Landlow, George P., William Holman Hunt and Typological Symbolism, New Haven, 1979, p. 80.

"1978 Annual Report," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 21, no. 1, 1979, p. 7, repr. p. 14.

Rose, Andrea, Pre-Raphaelite Portraits, Sparkford, 1981, p. 60, repr.

Fischer Fine Art Limited: London 1972-1982, London, 1982, repr. (col.).

Landow, George P., "William Holman Hunt's 'Oriental Mania' and his Uffizi Self-Portrait," Art Bulletin, vol. 64, no. 4, 1982, p. 646, repr. fig. 3.

Munn, Geoffrey C., Castellani and Giuliano, London, 1984, p. 19, fig. 4.

Marsh, Jan, Pre-Raphaelite Women, London, 1987, p. 142, fig. 122.

Master Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, Washington, D.C., 1988, p. 275.

Cole, Mark, "A Haunting Portrait by William Holman Hunt," Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 77, no. 10, Dec. 1990, pp. 357, 358, fig. 3.

Hall, Nicholas H.J., ed., Colnaghi in America, New York, 1992, p. 133.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Treasures, Toledo, 1995, p. 129, repr. (col.).

King, Laura, "The Cover," Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 277, no. 17, May 7, 1997, p. 1336, repr. on cover (col.).

Foster, Alicia, Gwen John, London, 1999, p. 18, fig. 10 (det. col.).

Taylor, Bradley L., "The Effect of Surrogation on Viewer Response to Expressional Qualities in Works of Art," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2001, pl. P2, p. 187.

Brockhurst, Judith, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonne, New Haven, Yale, 2006, no. 108, vol. I, pp. 17, 46, 206, 210, 212, 215, 217, vol. II, p. 109, repr. (col.) p. 211; [frame] no. 43, vol. I, p. 212, vol. II, pp. 296-299, repr. p. 335.

Jacobi, Carol, William Holman Hunt: Painter, Painting, Paint, Manchester, England, Manchester University Press, 2006, p. 91, pl. 12 (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 255, repr. (col.).

Staley, Allen, The new painting of the 1860s: between the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic movement, London, Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press, 2011, no. 337, pp. 366, 367, repr. (col.).

Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art, New York, Christie's, June 17, 2014, repr. (col.) p. 25, fig. 7.

Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art, London, Christie's, June 16, 2014, repr. p. 94, fig. 2.

Exhibition History

London, Maas Gallery, Pre-Raphaelites and Their Contemporaries, 1961, no. 133.

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery; London, Victoria and Albert Museum, William Holman Hunt, 1969, no. 40.

London, Tate Gallery, 1969-1977.