The Walls of Jerusalem from Graham's Tower, Mount of Olives (illustrated); Descent to the Tomb of David, The Coenculum, Jerusalem; and A house built on the water at Damietta, Egypt

Details

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
The Walls of Jerusalem from Graham's Tower, Mount of Olives (illustrated); Descent to the Tomb of David, The Coenculum, Jerusalem; and A house built on the water at Damietta, Egypt
one inscribed and dated 'Over the descent to the tomb of David in the church built by the Empress Helena to/commomorate [sic] the place of the Last Supper. Jerusalem June. 1854' (lower centre), one inscribed 'From G's tower M of O./for book' (lower centre) and with a further inscription 'Walls of Jerusalem' (on the reverse in the hand of Edith Holman Hunt), one inscribed 'Water' (lower left)
pencil
7 x 10 in. (17.8 x 25.5 cm.); and slightly smaller (3)

Provenance

The artist's family and by descent to
Mrs Elisabeth Burt; Sotheby's, London, 10 October 1975, lot 28, 27 (part) and lot 17 respectively.

Literature

W.H. Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905, vol. I, pp. 395, 296 illustrated, vol. II, p. 274, illustrated.
W.H. Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1913, vol. I, p. 287, 290 illustrated, vol. II, p. 220 illustrated.
To be included in J. Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale, 2004.

Exhibited

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery and London, Victoria and Albert Museum, William Holman Hunt, 1969, nos. 159, 158 and 146 respectively.
Portsmouth, City Museum and Art Gallery, Drawings by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Maddox Brown, 1976, no. 20 (The walls of Jerusalem).
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan 1965-1985.
London, Fine Art Society, Style: Art and Design 1830-1880: Selections from Stock, 1998, nos. 72, 77, 75 respectively.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis This lot is subject to Collection and Storage charges

Lot Essay

In May 1854 Hunt travelled by boat down the Nile from Cairo, and was becalmed for a few days at Damietta (Dumyat). He was particularly struck, he recalled in his memoires, by 'some pleasantly arranged houses on the harbour, with courtyards looking on the water, reminding one of Holland or Venice'.

Hunt's drawing of the dome over the sepulchre of King David in the Hall of the Last Supper (Coenaculum) was executed shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem. The most detailed part of the sketch focuses on one of the capitals of the medieval columns supporting the circular colonnades beneath the cupola. This is decorated with a carving of pelicans pecking their parent's breast, a symbol of Christian charity.

James Graham (1806-1869), keen photographer and Honorary Secretary of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, rented a little square stone tower near to the summmit of the Mount of Olives as his summer retreat. Hunt first stayed there in the early autumn of 1854, when he almost certainly executed the third drawing. Of the view from the tower, which looked over the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the site of the Temple, Hunt was later to write: 'No scene on earth could offer more for reflection'.

We are grateful to Judith Bronkhurst for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

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