 William Holman Hunt.jpg)
by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 19, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Self-portrait, 1867–75
William Holman Hunt sits facing us in a lustrous blue-green robe, with red cuffs, a patterned sash and a long red beard. A palette lies in his right hand; his left hand rests beside brushes on a table. The portrait began in 1867, but the National Portrait Gallery's specialist catalogue[1] says it was signed and dated 1875. The painting belongs to the Uffizi Galleries, Florence. Its long making matters: calling it simply a picture from 1867 would conceal years of work and the date Hunt placed on the finished canvas.
A painter at work
This is not only a likeness of Hunt's face. The palette and brushes make painting part of the scene, while the turned chair and table create a small working space around his body. His robe catches narrow streaks of light along its folds. Red at the wrists and beard brings warmth against the cooler blue-green cloth. The background is dark, with architectural forms suggested rather than fully explained. Hunt's face, beard and hands stand forward from that setting.
At a Glance
- ArtistWilliam Holman Hunt (1827–1910)
- TraditionBritish Pre-Raphaelite art
- Work or subjectSelf-portrait, 1867–75
- ContextIllustrated paintings guide
- Further readingArtist biography
The robe is what makes this self-image unlike his youthful 1845 portrait in Birmingham. There he wore an ordinary brown coat and showed mainly head and shoulders. Here he gives the viewer clothing associated with his journeys to the Middle East and shows the tools of his profession. The combination says something about how he wanted to appear in middle life: as a working painter whose travels were bound up with his art. This is a reading of visible choices, not proof that every detail has a fixed private symbol.
The National Portrait Gallery[1] describes the costume more specifically as a Syrian robe tied with a cashmere scarf. The term identifies clothing in the picture; the portrait is also part of a nineteenth-century British tradition of presenting travel through dress from another region. Scholar George P. Landow argues that Hunt combines the roles of traveller and practising artist: the palette prevents the robe from becoming a costume portrait alone. Landow notes that the setting might suggest one of Hunt's studios abroad, but he does not establish a specific room. [2]
Begun as a companion to Fanny's portrait
The painting's first purpose had a family dimension. Hunt's first wife, Fanny Waugh Hunt, died in Florence in December 1866, soon after the birth of their son Cyril. In a letter of 19 November 1867 to sculptor John Lucas Tupper, transcribed by Landow, Hunt said he was painting Fanny's portrait from an earlier photograph and a companion self-portrait from a mirror. He hoped Cyril would have images of both parents when they were gone. This testimony ties the start of the Uffizi work to the portrait of Fanny, now at the Toledo Museum of Art. [3]
Watch: William Holman Hunt
Begin with Hunt’s paintings, then place his work alongside two fellow Pre-Raphaelite founders.
William Holman Hunt Paintings
An overview of Hunt’s paintings from TheHistoryOfArt video archive.
Watch on YouTubeThe two portraits did not have identical histories. Fanny's image was made after her death and draws on the photograph Hunt mentioned; the self-portrait grew across the years to 1875. The letter explains why Hunt began them together, but it does not require us to read the completed self-portrait only as mourning. By the time he dated it, the robe, palette and substantial half-length format also presented his public identity as an artist. Landow's account is valuable because it joins Hunt's words to the pictures without making either role disappear.
The relationship to Fanny adds weight to the direct gaze. Hunt painted himself in a mirror, according to his letter. The man looking out of the canvas is thus both its subject and its observer, arranging his own image for a child who could not remember his mother. Knowing that original purpose changes what a viewer may notice, but the visible picture also remains a carefully staged image of a professional painter at work.
The long date and public life
NPG catalogues the Uffizi canvas as oil on canvas, about 104 × 73 centimetres, and gives its inventory number as 1890.n.3377. It was shown at Liverpool in 1875, the year on the signed painting. The specialist entry also lists later displays in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow in 1906–07, and in Florence in 1971 and 2004. Those records document the finished object's public history, rather than establishing that it was continuously on view in one room at the Uffizi. [1]
A full-size replica by Edward Robert Hughes hangs at the Athenaeum Club in London, according to the same NPG entry. Hughes made it under Hunt's supervision, probably before 1907. That relationship is close, but the club picture is still another physical object. The portrait reproduced here is identified with the Uffizi original, whose 1867–75 chronology and 1875 signature are the subject of this page. Nor is it the c.1877 portrait of Hunt by Sir William Blake Richmond, which shows Hunt through another artist's eyes.
Landow reads the robe as part of Hunt's claim to have travelled and studied in lands associated with biblical history. That interpretation is grounded in Hunt's travels and in the picture's visible costume, yet it remains an interpretation of how Hunt fashioned himself for viewers. His palette, brushes, gaze and mirror-made likeness make the painting more than a record of dress. Begun to accompany Fanny's portrait, finished after years of work and shown to an audience in 1875, it joins personal memory to a public image of the painter he had become.
This site also uses a crop of the Uffizi image on Hunt's overview page. Cropping concentrates the face and beard, but it removes the palette, brushes and much of the robe that make the complete composition an artist's self-portrait. The full work on this page restores those clues. It helps distinguish this image from both the youthful Birmingham self-portrait and Richmond's later portrait of Hunt. A familiar face reused in a different format is still a view of the same Uffizi object; the crop is not another painting or evidence for a new date. The NPG inventory's Uffizi number 1890.n.3377 remains the clearest cross-reference. [1]
Discussion
Look closely at Self-portrait, 1867–75, then compare your reading with the documented history.
Reader Insights
Which detail in Self-portrait, 1867–75 most affects your reading?
How do the date, medium and collection records shape that interpretation?
What remains uncertain about this work or its history?
Join the Conversation
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References
- National Portrait Gallery's specialist catalogue. View source.
- Landow, Art Bulletin essay, public meanings. View source.
- Landow, Art Bulletin essay, private meanings. View source.
