Fig. B William Henry Hunt, The Shy Sitter (c. 1854-55)

The Shy Sitter

Preston, England, Harris Museum and Art Gallery

Watercolor, bodycolor, and gum arabic with scratching out

9 X 7 3/4 in., 22.8 X 18.4 cm.

Signed,

 

Provenance:

(S) 1859 (P) John James Ruskin [father of the author];

John Ruskin (S) 1869 (P) James Orrock;

Rev. J. P. Haslam, by whom bequeathed to the Harris Museum in 1924.

 

 

Exhibited:

1877-78, London, Grosvenor Gallery, Winter Exhibition;

1879-80, London, Fine Art Society, Ruskin's Exhibition of Prout and Hunt, No. 172, Lent by James Orrock;

1887, Manchester, England, Royal Jubilee Exhibition, No. 1393, Lent by James Orrock;

1891, London, Royal Academy, No. 106, Lent by James Orrock;

1981, England, Traveling Hunt exhibition.

 

,John Ruskin gushed even more praise than usual over this watercolor by William Henry Hunt, now in the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, England. It is a small work, only 9 X 7 1/4 inches, but it is one of Hunt's highest achievements in the depiction of human expressions and attitudes. It must have been painted in about 1854-55, since it depicts the same young girl, in the same clothing, as the one shown in the very closely related (and much less charming) Hunt watercolor, Diffidence (Timidite in French), exhibited in 1854 at the Society of Painters in Water-colours and in 1855 at the Exposition Universelle, Paris.

Done