William Henry Hunt, John Ruskin's Dead Chick, Exhibited 1861

John Ruskin's Dead Chick

Liverpool, England, The Walker Art Gallery, Inv. no. 895

Watercolor, bodycolor, and gum arabic

4 1/4 X 6 in., 10.8 X 15.4 cm

Signed, l.r., W. HUNT

 

 

Provenance:

John Ruskin, for whom it was painted;

Walter F. Morrice (S) Christie's 12 May 1922, lot 43 (P) Young £23 2s.;

Harold E. Young;

Harold S. Young, by whom it was donated to the Walker Art Gallery in 1932

 

Exhibited

Spring 1861, Society of Painters in Water-colours, No. 258 (A Chick. One of a series painted for J. Ruskin, Esq., to be presented to Schools of Art);

1879-80, London, Fine Art Society, Prout and Hunt Exhibition, Mp/ 46 (Dead Chicken, lent by Mr. Ruskn);

1981, England, Traveling Hunt Exhibition,

 

John Ruskin commissioned Hunt to paint a handful of watercolors to be used by art students, but he was disappointed in the results. He wrote in the catalogue for the exhibition he organized at the Fine Art Society, :Dead Chicken: Done by the old man, in all kindness and care, at my own request, for me to give as types of work to country schools of art. Yet no kindness or care could altogether enable him to work rightly under the directions of another mind; ad the project was ultimately given up by me, the chicken, finished as it is, having been one of my chief disappointments."

 

It is hard to see what caused Ruskin to be so disappointed in this small painting. It is no different in type than the dead pigeons which which were included in the Ruskin exhibit. In fact, Ruskin highly praised Hunt's work in the dead pigeon which had been purchased by Ruskin's father a few decades earlier and which Ruskin himself owned by 1879. Moreover, Ruskin surely knew that Hunt did not like to work on subjects chosen by clients who commissioned works from him. At the time Ruskin's father informed him of the Dove (Pigeon) he had just bought, he also told Ruskin that he had been informed by Hunt, himself, that he could not have done such a good job if someone had told him what to paint. And, if John Ruskin was so very disappointed in the result of his commission, why did he included the Dead Chick in an exhibition he himself had organized. But Ruskin was not always consistent in his thoughts, and, whatever his motivations for slamming this watercolor, it is still of great interest as an example of Hunt's paintings of dead animals from the end of the artist's career.

Done