Not on display
- Artist
- William Holman Hunt 1827–1910
- Medium
- Chalk on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 508 × 356 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1981
- Reference
- T03321
Catalogue entry
T03321 STUDY FOR THE CHRIST CHILD IN THE VIRGIN'S ARMS FOR 'THE TRIUMPH OF THE INNOCENTS’ 1876
Inscribed in the artist's hand ‘The head of the baby about/the length of the mother's/face’, top right and ? ‘capital’, top left, with an arrow below pointing to the child's head; also inscribed verso, probably in Edith Holman-Hunt's hand, ‘Design preparatory to/Triumph of Innocents/by WHH/1876.’
Black and red chalk on paper, 20 × 14 (50.7 × 35.4)
Purchased (Trustees of the Tate Gallery and Discretionary Funds) 1981
Prov: The artist; by descent to Mrs Elizabeth Burt; sold by her, Sotheby's Belgravia 16 November 1976 (in lot 230, repr.);...; Sotheby's Belgravia 20 October 1981 (6, repr.) bt by the Tate Gallery.
Exh: William Holman Hunt, Liverpool and London 1969 (227).
One of a group of surviving preliminary studies dating from about June 1876 - while the artist was in Palestine - for the central figures in the first version of ‘The Triumph of the Innocents’ (oil on canvas, 62 × 97 1/8, 157.5 × 247.5, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) which occupied Hunt between 1876 and 1887. In the finished picture, although the child's body is still in essentially the same position as that shown in T03321, both arms are outstretched and the left leg is crossed over the right foot. This pose was repeated in the replica of the Liverpool picture completed by Hunt in 1885 and now Tate Gallery N03334. The artist's wife Edith Holman-Hunt was probably the model for the Virgin Mary, but the identity of the child is not known.
Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1980-82: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1984
Explore
- objects(23,377)
- baby(530)
- individuals: female(1,704)
- Bible: New Testament(536)
-
- Christ(277)
- Massacre of the Innocents(3)
- Virgin Mary(141)
- family(4,136)
-
- mother and child(404)
You might like
-
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of the Virgin and Child for ‘The Star of Bethlehem’
c.1887 -
William Holman Hunt The Triumph of the Innocents
1883–4 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Studies for a Nativity
date not known -
Arthur Boyd Houghton Head of a Woman and Child
date not known -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of Heads for a Pietà
date not known -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Passover in the Holy Family
1856 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Studies of Drapery and the Figure of the Virgin for the ‘Annunciation’ in the Church of St Martin’s-on-the-Hill, Scarborough, Yorkshire
c.1862 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt The Nativity
date not known -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Study for the Head of Love, for ‘Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice’
1870 -
John Linnell [title not known]
published 1843 -
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt Study for ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’
c.1849 -
Hablot Knight Browne (`Phiz’) Mother with Baby, a Child Placing Bread in an Oven
date not known -
John Linnell [title not known]
published 1843 -
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt The Wise Virgins
published 1864 -
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt The Foolish Virgins
published 1864