“The Eavesdropper” by William Henry Hunt, 1790-1864

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Victorian Painters —> William Henry Hunt —> Hunt's watercolors —> Hunt's drawings and watercolors]

Anticipation

William Henry Hunt, 1790-1864

Watercolor

10 ¼ x 7 ¼ inches

Signed and labelled by the sitter

Provenance: Elizabeth Osmond, (née Morrison), gift of the artist

The Maas Gallery, 6 Duke Street, St. James, London SW1Y 6BN has most generously given its permission to use in the Victorian Web information, images, and text from its catalogues, and this generosity has led to the creation of many valuable documents on painting and drawing. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with the Gallery. Readers should consult their website to obtain information about recent exhibitions and to order their catalogues. [GPL]

Click on image to enlarge it

Maas Gallery Commentary

Labelled by the sitter (1) 'This picture is called "Anticipation" & is a portrait of Elizabeth Morrison afterwards Elizabeth Osmond. It was painted at Hastings by "William Hunt", (2) [Mem]ber of the Society of ... Colours', (3) 'It's in the same frame as it came from the Old Water Colour Exhibition in Pall Mall, where I had it framed when Mr Hunt gave it to me EO'

This is the first (prime) version of Hunt’s pretty Love’s Missive (or The Appointment), exhibited at the Old Water-colour Society in 1830. The artist’s biographer, John Witt, thought the model for the later V&A version of this watercolour was the artist’s wife Maria Hunt, who often sat for her husband, but it is apparent from the inscriptions on the labels of our picture that the model was Elizabeth Morrison, painted at Hastings.

After seeing the V&A version, F.G. Stephens wrote in Fraser’s Magazine: ‘I saw recently, at Christie’s auction-room, a drawing styled ‘The Appointment’, - a lady holding aside a blind in order that she might look through a window. This was by no means an important work: it sold for £28 only, but it established Hunt’s claim for admiration on high grounds. Neglecting to put dates to drawings, the artist prepared no end of trouble for his biographer, and countless disputes among his admirers. The work just named was, I fancy, executed in the interval between 1825 and 1830’ (1865, vol 72, p 532).

‘Up to the time when he joined the Society he had painted chiefly landscapes or architectural subjects; but he began then to exhibit those studies of rustic figures and still life to which he adhered for the rest of his long career. He was an admirably acute observer and a masterly executant, and by his consummate ability he gave a meaning and importance to his work far beyond what can ordinarily be claimed for such essays in what is necessarily more or less unimaginative realism. In some ways it is surprising that an artist so highly gifted should have been content to confine his practice within such narrow limits, but he was severely hampered throughout his life by ill-health, and it was scarcely possible for him to attempt anything which might have taxed his physical energies’ (The Old Water-Colour Society, 1804-1904, p 43).

Bibliography

Witt, John. William Henry Hunt, Life and Work, with a Catalogue. Barrie and Jenkins: 1982.

Last modified 21 June 2022