| Object ID |
1989.65 |
| Object Name |
Painting |
| Dimensions |
H-24.25 W-48.75 inches |
| Early Date |
1866 |
| Late Date |
1868 |
| Description |
William Morris Hunt was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and descended from a long line of illustrious Vermonters, including his father, Jonathan Hunt, who served as a judge and one of Vermont's representatives to congress. His brothers Richard Morris Hunt, the famous architect, and Leavitt Hunt, an accomplished photographer, became quite well known as well.
As a young man, Hunt studied drawing briefly in New Haven, Connecticut, before traveling to Europe with his family. He worked briefly in Rome prior to entering the Dusseldorf Academy in 1846. From 1847 to 1852, Hunt studied in Paris with Thomas Couture. Although Couture's influence is evident in Hunt's early work, it was the French painter Jean Francois Millet, with whom Hunt studied in 1853, wo had the most profound impact on both the subject matter and style of Hunt's work. Hunt's friendship with Millet and his relationship with other French painters of the Barbizon school led to his promotion of their work in Boston. When Hunt settled in Boston in 1862, it was his enthusiasm for the Barbizon painters that led Bostonians to be among the earliest patrons and collectors of their paintings and of Millet's work in particular.
Hunt was a versatile artist and worked in many media, producing portraits, landscapes, and drawings as well as the large murals of "Anahita, Flight of Night" for the Capitol building in Albany, New York. "The Roman GIrl" closely resembles a sketch of the same subject in the Metropolitan Museum in New York which is signed and dated 1866 and which was, without doubt, drawn on Hunt's second trip to Europe in that year. Another painting, "The Italian Girl," in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, dated 1867, shows a bust-length portrait of the same model. |
| Credit |
Gift of George Adams Ellis |
|
