.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
William Holman Hunt executed this highly finished drawing with a view to its being reproduced as the frontispiece to Pearl: An English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, Edited with a Modern Rendering by Israel Gollancz (1891). It is Hunt's most ambitious work in the medium of silverpoint, a challenging technique dating from the 15th Century. This was suited to the early subject but may have been used because it could be photomechanically reproduced more clearly than graphite and less harshly than ink. The extensive use of white heightening adds depth of tone: Hunt must have known that the technique to be employed for the published illustration was collotype, which is ideally suited to conveying tonal variations.
The Pearl Maiden of the poem is a vision of a deceased child, usually interpreted as the narrator's daughter, in a gleaming white tunic embroidered with pearls, and breastplate of a 'spotless pearl' set there by Christ 'in token of peace'. The verse illustrated is from part V. This is the version by Gollancz:
BEDIGHT with pearls, that precious thing
came down the shore on that yonder bank;
from here to Greece was no gladder man
than I, when she stood at the water's edge.
She was nearer to me than aunt or niece,
and so much the more was my joy.
She proffered me speech, that creature rare,
bending low in womanly wise;
her crown of richest worth she doffed,
and hailed me with obeisance blithe
well was me that e'er I was born
to answer that sweet one, with pearls bedight.
At this point there is no city backdrop to the scene, but the narrator is later accorded a glimpse of the New or Heavenly Jerusalem, as beheld in Revelations by St John from Mount Zion. This gave Hunt the cue to incorporate in his drawing city walls reminiscent of the Old Jerusalem, with the mosque of the Dome of the Rock behind Pearl's outstretched arm.
Gollancz and Holman Hunt became close friends, and in his letter of 25 July 1893 to Blake Richmond, Hunt described the young academic as 'a dear fellow - and very much unlike the herd' (MS. RA Archives).
We are grateful to Dr Judith Bronkhurst for providing this catalogue entry.
The Pearl Maiden of the poem is a vision of a deceased child, usually interpreted as the narrator's daughter, in a gleaming white tunic embroidered with pearls, and breastplate of a 'spotless pearl' set there by Christ 'in token of peace'. The verse illustrated is from part V. This is the version by Gollancz:
BEDIGHT with pearls, that precious thing
came down the shore on that yonder bank;
from here to Greece was no gladder man
than I, when she stood at the water's edge.
She was nearer to me than aunt or niece,
and so much the more was my joy.
She proffered me speech, that creature rare,
bending low in womanly wise;
her crown of richest worth she doffed,
and hailed me with obeisance blithe
well was me that e'er I was born
to answer that sweet one, with pearls bedight.
At this point there is no city backdrop to the scene, but the narrator is later accorded a glimpse of the New or Heavenly Jerusalem, as beheld in Revelations by St John from Mount Zion. This gave Hunt the cue to incorporate in his drawing city walls reminiscent of the Old Jerusalem, with the mosque of the Dome of the Rock behind Pearl's outstretched arm.
Gollancz and Holman Hunt became close friends, and in his letter of 25 July 1893 to Blake Richmond, Hunt described the young academic as 'a dear fellow - and very much unlike the herd' (MS. RA Archives).
We are grateful to Dr Judith Bronkhurst for providing this catalogue entry.