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Study for "The Hireling Shepherd"
About the Artwork
Together with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt was one of the founding members in 1848 of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of young artists who rejected the heavy darkness and idealization of academic history painting, replacing it with meticulously observed, jewel-colored naturalistic detail. This is a study for the figures in the oil painting The Hireling Shepherd, Hunt’s first commercial success. The poses of the couple in the painting are remarkably close to the early study: the shepherd approaches the shepherdess upon his knees, encircling her shoulders with his arm. Devoid of extraneous detail, the study concentrates on the romantic play and erotic tension expressed by the lovers’ intertwined limbs and faces and hands that stop just short of touching.
Inscriptions
inscribed, in graphite, on verso, at lower edge: Sketch for figures in Hireling Shepherd; in graphite, on verso, at center of sheet: First Drawing Hireling Shepherd Pale Cream Mt o Linen same as Scapegoat o Frame same
Provenance
1910-?: The artist's family, by descent ?-probably 1985: Mrs. Elisabeth Burt 1985: (sale, Sotheby's, London, October 10, 1985, no. 15) 1985-1986: (Peter Nahum, Ltd., London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) 1986-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987). British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Holman Hunt (British, 1827–1910)
- Date
- 1851
- Medium
- graphite
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 11.4 x 18.3 cm (4 1/2 x 7 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Delia E. Holden Fund
- Accession no.
- 1986.18
More by William Holman Hunt in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011033
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