Hunt's Scapegoat (Early Version)

The Scapegoat

William Holman Hunt

1854-55

Oil on canvas

13 1/4 x 18 1/16 inches

Manchester City Art Galleries

This oil sketch, which Hunt completed in the Middle East, differs from the more famous (or infamous) version in the collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight (Liverpool) in two important ways, the first of which is that the animal who bears all the sins of Israel (and hence prefigures Christ) is here black. Second, Hunt included a second commonplace, if ambiguous, type of Christ — a rainbow.

References

Landow, George P. "The Scapegoat" in Replete with Meaning (1979).

The Pre-Raphaelites. London: Tate Gallery/Allen Tate, 1984.