[This essay originally appeared in The Art Bulletin, 64 (1982), 646--55.]
This painting seems to have been virtually unknown until its inclusion in the 1971 Pitti Palace exhibition Firenze e l'lnghilterra, " despite the fact that a copy of it also hangs in Hunt's London club, The Athenaeum. although the catalogue of the exhibition reproduces the Self-portrait, it contains little information about it, and the relevant catalogue entry confines itself to general remarks about Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
This little-studied work would deserve our attention if only because it is the finest self-portrait painted by an original member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But the Uffizi Self-portrait also adds to our knowledge of Hunt at mid-career and has the additional importance of being the pictorial means by which the artist chose to sum up his life and art.
- [ Credits and Thanks]
- Private Meanings: His Family Program
- Public Meanings (I): Hunt as Oriental Traveler
- Public Meanings (II): Hunt as Religious Naturalist
- The Critical Reception of Hunt's Religious Naturalism
Last modified 12 June 2007