Design for a reading desk. 1868. Pencil, pen and ink. William Holman Hunt(1827-1910)

pencil, pen and ink drawing on paper

Provenance: By descent from the Artist; Mrs Elizabeth Burt.

Note: In 1864 the artist was commissioned to decorate the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Cambridge, where his friend William Beaumont had been curate since 1858. Hunt described in his memoirs how he arranged for the lecturn to be made in walnut wood with ivory and dark wood inlay, but on hearing of the death of Beaumont when he returned from the East, cancelled the order. The artist eventually kept the lecturn himself.

This design is the only known drawing relating to the commission which was executed in Florence in 1868. Inscribed with title on former mount.

Holman Hunt is best known for his remarkable religious paintings. He designed frames for his pictures and may have also designed other three-dimensional objects. This drawing for a reading desk is the only three-dimensional design by Hunt in the V&A collection. The desk is simple and massive, like the Gothic examples he had seen in medieval churches. Hunt designed it for his friend William Beaumont, who was curate at the church of St Michael and All Angels, Cambridge. Beaumont died before the commission was completed and Hunt eventually kept the reading desk himself.

E.599-1985