William Henry Hunt

The little boy depicted in the present work is one of the three Swain brothers who often featured in Hunt's watercolours during the 1830s.  The same boy and perhaps even the same table appear in a pair of works entitled The Attack and The Defeat which were sold in these Rooms on the 17^th November 1983, lot 183.  So popular were 'Hunts Boys' that in 1844, thirty-three watercolours depicting them were lithographed by Thomas Fairland for publication in Hunt's Comic Sketches (see John Witt, William Henry Hunt (1790-1864) Life and Work, With a Catalogue, London, 1982, p. 47).