Portrait of Arthur Henry Giles, aged twelve, bust-length

Details

William Holman Hunt, A.R.S.A., R.S.W., H.R.W.S. (1827-1910)
Portrait of Arthur Henry Giles, aged twelve, bust-length
signed 'W.H. HUNT.' (lower right, on sitter's sleeve)
pen and brown ink
9 x 7¼ in. (22.8 x 18.4 cm.)

Provenance

Anna Sarah Giles, mother of the sitter, 1852.
Arthur Henry Giles, the sitter, Weston-super-Mare.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 14 March 1978, lot 175.
with Agnew's, London.

Literature

J. Bronkhurst, 'William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Drawings executed up to his Departure for the Near East on 13 January 1854', PhD dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1987, no. D87, pp. 435-6, pl. 215.
J. Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 2006, II, p. 214, no. L26.

Exhibited

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Collective Exhibition of the Art of W. Holman Hunt, O.M., D.C.L., 1907, no. 85, lent by A.H. Giles.
Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Exhibition of Pictures and Drawings by W. Holman Hunt, O.M., D.C.L., 1907, no. 65.
London, Agnew's, Images of Victorian Life: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 1990, no. 73, illustrated.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

According to previous cataloguing, there was once an old label on the backboard of the picture which gave the following information: 'Arthur Henry Giles Aetit XII Drawn by Holman Hunt in the drawing-room of Mrs Coombes [sic], wife of the Supt., Clarendon Press, Oxford, on a Sunday afternoon in 1852, Millais, & Collins also present'. Bronkhurst records that Mrs Combe told the sitter to give the portrait to his mother for safekeeping, as the artist would one day be famous.

Hunt first met Mr and Mrs Combe in the autumn of 1851 when he was painting at Worcester Park Farm in the company of Charles Alston Hunt and John Everett Millais.

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