William Holman Hunt

Hunt was born in London, the son of a warehouse manager. He worked as an office clerk before being accepted at the Royal Academy Schools in 1844. He met J.E. Millais around this time. He exhibited at the Royal Manchester Institution from 1845, and at the Royal Academy and the British Institution from 1846. In September 1848, with D.G. Rossetti and Millais, he formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

 In 1850 Hunt exhibited A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) at the Royal Academy; it was sold to Thomas Combe, who become his major patron, friend and business adviser. In 1852 he sold The Hireling Shepherd (City of Manchester Art Galleries), his first work to display his new style of symbolic realism which was intended to expressed Christian ideals. His 1853 Royal Academy exhibits attracted the attention of Thomas Fairbairn, who commissioned him to complete The Awakening Conscience (1853, Tate Gallery)