William Holman Hunt, O.M., R.W.S., A.R.S.A.

Judith Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt, A Catalogue raisonné, New Haven and London, 2006, 2 volumes, Vol. II, p. 186, no. D379, catalogued & illustrated

An inscription on the reverse of this beautiful study suggests that it was made before 1865 but this is not in Holman Hunt's hand and is open to conjecture. The study certainly relates to the flower held by the central chorister in May Morning on Magdalen Tower probably begun in 1888 and completed in 1893 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, another version at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight). The lily is the symbol of the Virgin Mary, 'symbolical of the dedication of the (Magdalen) College, in the armorial bearings of which lilies are a conspicuous feature' (John Bull, 16 May 1891, p. 314). On 25 July 1890 Hunt wrote to his friend, the Suffolk writer and banker Edward Clodd about his difficulties in finding suitable out-of-season flowers for the painting; 'I am still behind hand with the flowers. To-day I shall try to get a lily, but i am almost too late for this and some other spring flowers, and if I went away even for two days, i should not have a chance.' (MS, Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection, Clodd Collection)