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

Commissioned by James Labram, in 1848;

Gifted to his sister-in-law Elizabeth Collyer, Sussex (mother of the sitter);

Thence by descent to her daughter Ellen Weld (née Collyer) (1830–1919);

By descent to her son Henry Corbin Weld, by 1919;

By descent to his daughter Constance Madeleine Thomas, by 1926;

By descent to Mrs P.M. Thomas;

By whose Executors sold, Birmingham, Fellows & Sons, 22 September 1998;

Where acquired by the present owner.

J. Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt, A catalogue raisonné, vol. I, New Haven and London 2006, pp. 128–9, no. 57, reproduced in colour p. 128.

Painted after The Flight of Madeleine and Porphyro, this conventional portrait depicts Ellen Collyer at the age of 18 years old, painted in the summer of 1848 shortly after the death of her father. The sitter's uncle, James Labram, was Holman Hunt's first employer and recognised the artist's skill early on in his artistic career. Evidently at this stage Holman Hunt was adjusting his focus to commissioned portraits so as to sustain himself as an artist. The sitter's distinctive, almost protuberant eyes, are characteristic of the artist's portraits of this period, including the unfinished portrait of the artist's sister, Mrs Sarah Wilson, c. 1849–1850 (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts). The present lot is accompanied by a statutory declaration made by the sitter on 20 April 1909.