Still life with a pineapple and three plums

William Henry Hunt was born in London, the son of a tin plate worker. He gained an apprenticeship under John Varley (1788-1842) and also enrolled in Dr. Munro's drawing classes. From approximately 1840 onwards Hunt turned to the still-life paintings which brought him immense popularity in his lifetime and which were painted with meticulous attention to detail, appealing to an age obsessed with scientific observation and classification. Hunt's ability to capture fragile surfaces and depths of colour of plums was particularly admired, in 1851 The Art Journal described such a drawing as the 'ne plus ultra of fruit painting; if the bloom upon the plums has been disturbed by the wing of a gnat, it is not omitted ...' (p. 163).