William Holman Hunt, an English painter, born in London in 1827. He studied in the ' school of the royal academy, and in 1846 exhibited his first picture, entitled "Hark," which was followed by a scene from " Woodstock " (1847), the " Flight of Madeline and Porphyro," from Keats's " Eve of St. Agnes " (1848), and "Rienzi vowing to obtain Justice for the Murder of his Brother," from Bulwer's novel (1849). In 1850 appeared his "Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids," the first fruits of the new " pre-Raphaelite " movement in British art. He had in the previous year associated himself with John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for the purpose of restoring to the art the earnestness and conscientious accuracy that animated the painters who preceded Raphael. Mediaevalism in theology and architecture was the prevailing mode of the day, and the young artists showed the influence which it had perhaps unconsciously exerted upon them, by styling themselves " pre-Raphaelites;" although they distinctly avowed their object to be chiefly the study of nature, to which they looked for inspiration, and the minutest details of which they proposed to copy with scrupulous accuracy.

By common consent Hunt was regarded as the leader of the new school, which was shortly joined by Charles Collins and other young artists; and notwithstanding much hostile criticism and ridicule, he continued year by year to develop the idea with which ho started. In 1851 appeared his "Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus," in 1852 " The Hireling Shepherd," and in 1853 " Claudio and Isabella " and " Our English Coasts," a pre-Raphaelite study of the downs at Hastings, all strongly imbued with the characteristics of the new style. In 1854 he produced two powerful pictures, "The Awakened Conscience" and " The Light of the World." The summer of 1855 was spent by Mr. Hunt on the shores of the Dead sea, where he took minute studies of the surrounding scenery, which were subsequently embodied in his picture of the "Scape Goat," exhibited in the succeeding year. To the universal exposition of 1867 in Paris he sent " After Sunset in Egypt." Mr. Hunt resided for some years in Jerusalem engaged in painting a picture recently finished, "The Shadow of Death," for which he received 10,000 guineas.