3-016-988 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bust of the late William Hunt, Esq., in the gallery of the Water-Colour Society - sculptured by A. Munro, 1864. 'By the consent of all good judges, William Hunt, the great artist in water colours, occupied during the chief part of his long life the very first place among painters of flowers, fruit, and other inanimate objects; while he was almost equally unrivalled in pictures of rustic children, landscapes, and interiors...His loss was, of course, most severely felt by the Old Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he had been one of the earliest, and was at his death one of the oldest, members. The respect and admiration of the society for their deceased brother is now shown by their placing his bust...in the most prominent position in their gallery...The present work is the property of Mdme. Bodichon...herself a painter in water colours of very considerable ability, and she has kindly lent it for the season. As a work of art the bust deserves such unqualified praise as can but rarely be given to memorial sculptures, great or small, especially those which are posthumous, as this is. So full of lifelike individuality is it, and so remarkable were the characteristics of the sculptor's "subject," that the likeness is most striking'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.