A young Lady at her desk
A young Lady at her desk
A young lady at her desk Signed lower right; W.HUNTWatercolour and bodycolour 25.3 by 17.5 cm., 10 by 6 ¾ in.Provenance:With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London (No 461);Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, 16th July 1987, lot 197Throughout his career, but most especially between the late 1820s and the end of the 1830s, Hunt painted interior subjects, usually populated with female figures engaged in domestic pursuits or at leisure, reading or sewing. Not only did the different elements, textiles, furniture, paintings, ornaments and figures provide a wide range of textures and effects for the artist to explore and challenge his technical prowess, but from a practical point of view, they were easier and more comfortable locations for the artist to work in. Furthermore from the 1830s Hunt's patrons began to come from the middle as well as the upper classes and such domestic subjects would have found wide appeal. Hunt often used his friends and family as models and there is a similarity between the sitter in the present watercolour and pencil studies of his sister-in-law Maria, who was married to the artist's elder brother, Thomas James Hunt. The Hunt family were clearly close; they lived near each other in London and on Thomas's death in the 1830s, Maria and her children, Maria and William Henry Junior, moved in with the artist and his family.){kind=link}
William Henry Hunt O.W.S. (1790-1864)
A young lady at her desk
Signed lower right; W.HUNT
Watercolour and bodycolour
25.3 by 17.5 cm., 10 by 6 ¾ in.
Provenance:
With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London (No 461);
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, 16th July 1987, lot 197
Throughout his career, but most especially between the late 1820s and the end of the 1830s, Hunt painted interior subjects, usually populated with female figures engaged in domestic pursuits or at leisure, reading or sewing. Not only did the different elements, textiles, furniture, paintings, ornaments and figures provide a wide range of textures and effects for the artist to explore and challenge his technical prowess, but from a practical point of view, they were easier and more comfortable locations for the artist to work in. Furthermore from the 1830s Hunt's patrons began to come from the middle as well as the upper classes and such domestic subjects would have found wide appeal.
Hunt often used his friends and family as models and there is a similarity between the sitter in the present watercolour and pencil studies of his sister-in-law Maria, who was married to the artist's elder brother, Thomas James Hunt. The Hunt family were clearly close; they lived near each other in London and on Thomas's death in the 1830s, Maria and her children, Maria and William Henry Junior, moved in with the artist and his family.