Inventory Project

Currently not on view

Quinces and haws,

ca. 1850

William Henry Hunt, British, 1790–1864
x1992-104
Hunt’s refined still lifes provide a bridge between British landscape watercolorists like David Cox and the mid-nineteenth-century Victorian Pre-Raphaelites, whose works convey their passion for highly finished detail. Using a technique of his own invention, Hunt applied small touches of watercolor over impasto strokes of white gouache to produce sparkling images of remarkable verisimilitude. Hunt’s still lives of natural subjects were especially admired by the French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire when they were shown in the Paris Salon of 1855, and by the British artist and educator John Ruskin, who lavishly praised them in his influential book Elements of Drawing, published in 1857.

Information

Title
Quinces and haws
Dates

ca. 1850

Maker

William Henry Hunt

Medium
Watercolor
Dimensions
sight: 26.1 × 31 cm (10 1/4 × 12 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Surdna Fund
Object Number
x1992-104
Signatures
Signed, lower left: W. Hunt
Culture
British
Type
drawings, watercolors
Materials
watercolor, paper (fiber product)
Subject
still lifes, fruit, berries

Robert Wade, London for whom it was made; presumably sold at Christie’s 9 Mar. 1872, lot ?; W.E. Sibeth; sale Christie’s 29 Mar 1884, lot 69, as <em>Three Quinces and Hips</em> (See reference Bib. 4810); James Orrock; T. G. Carmichael (until 1902); sale Chritie's London February 28-March 3, 1930, lot 30; Hirschl &amp; Adler Galleries, New York (their number HA 6432);

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