Fig. 10c. William Henry Hunt, Study of a Woodcock, dated and exhibited 1825

Study of a Woodcock

Oxford, England, The Ashmolean Museum, No. WA.RS.RUD.179

Watercolor and bodycolor with gum arabic

129 x 221 mm

Signed and dated, l.l., Wm. HUNT. 1825.

Inscribed on back: R179

 

Provenance

Presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford), 1875; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum, c. 1949.

 

This watercolor, which is one of the very few paintings which were actually dated 1825 by William Henry Hunt, shows the artist's new style which he introduced around that year. Instead of outlining his subject with ink using a reed pen and then filling the outlines with watercolor washes, as in the Gardener in a Potting Shed, the artist uses small, finely stippled strokes of watercolor to more fully yet subtlely define the figure. At this early period, Hunt sets the elements of his still life watercolors against neutral, non-specific backgrounds. These also were rendered with stippling instad of washes.

Done