Two etchings in black ink on off-white paper for the frontispiece of the first issue of The Germ. Inscribed in plate W HOLMAN HUNT, lower left, in Of My Lady in Death. 81/16 x 51/2 in. (22.1 x 13.9 cm) – sheet size; 4 7/16 x 41/8 in. (11.3 x 10.4 cm) – image size – upper image 23/8 x 41/16 in. (5.9 x 10.4 cm) – image size – lower image. Private collection; image courtesy of the author.
Hunt's etchings, the first published etchings by a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, are illustrations to Thomas Woolner's poems "My Beautiful Lady" and "Of my Lady in Death," published in volume I of The Germ in January 1850. In addition to the etchings contained in this volume fifty proofs on India paper were printed to be sold separately. W. M. Rossetti reported: "Hunt has been told by Millais that Mr. Wyatt of Oxford wants to have some proof impressions of the etching for sale; and Hunt thinks of having some 50 or so printed on large fine paper, to be sold at 3/- or 4/- each" (The P.R.B. Journal, 36). Rossetti, however, did not find these proofs to be generally superior to those printed on common paper.
Reflective of the fact that the etching illustrates two poems, the print is divided into compartments. The superior image illustrates verse 12 of "My Beautiful Lady" showing the male lover supporting his lady while she picks flowers close to a stream:
"This is why I thought weeds were beautiful;
Because one day I saw my lady pull
Some weeds up near a little brook."
The second image illustrates verse 19 of "Of My Lady in Death" and depicts the agony of the grief-stricken lover who is lying prone on the ground, his hands clasped about his head:
"When first the bell's harsh toll
Rang for my lady's soul.
I dropped, in a dead swoon,
And lay a long time cold upon my face."
This is certainly the most important of the Pre-Raphaelite etchings for The Germ and probably the most important etching Hunt ever executed. Hunt had proofs of the etching printed by a professional printer and he revised the plate at least three times with each new proof showing a refinement in the result (Rix 175). William Michael Rossetti noted in the The P.R.B. Journal: "A third impression has been made of the etching, which Gabriel has seen, and considers a most striking improvement" (36). The etchings were begun by 18 September 1849 and were ready to be delivered to the printer by December 15, 1849. Hunt paid the entire cost for the etchings to be printed which totaled £2.6, a goodly amount for a struggling young artist.
Although Woolner's poem did not specifically relate to the medieval period Hunt's etching definitely reflects this interval of time. Brenda Rix has commented regarding the etching itself:
The outdoor setting in the etching is carefully delineated using cross-hatching and roulette work. The young man holds his lady's hand while she leans precariously over the water's edge; his dark cloak contrasts with her pure white dress, symbolizing that while he is rooted in time, she is slipping into eternity. The early-Italian flavour is enhanced by the altarpiece-and-predella format, the shallow space, the medievalized costumes and the theatrical poses of the figures. The hooded tunic gown, flowing cloaks and elongated pointed-toed shoes were probably based on illustrations from Camille Bonnard's Costumes Historiques, published in 1830. [176-77]
Judith Bronkhurst points out that "Hunt conveys the rawness of the lover's pain by including the spade that has just been used to fill in his fiancée's grave. Its handle rests on the man's forearm, while the blade confronts the spectator directly, looming out at the lower edge of the image" (270). In the background of the etching for My Lady in Death a line of cowled monks can be seen passing two statues. D.M.R. Bentley feels this may be Hunt alluding to the fact that Woolner was a sculptor or may also reflect Coventry Patmore's comment from September 1849 that Woolner's poems were "sometimes slightly over passionate and generally sculpturesque in character" (12). Patmore's comments were recorded in W. M. Rossetti's The P.R.B. Journal on September 25, 1849 (16). Rix has pointed out the similarity of Hunt's etching to Millais's early pen-and-ink drawing of Lovers by a Rosebush, which also explores the theme of doomed lovers in a natural environment (176).
Gregory Suriano felt this etching closely resembled the early awkward naïve style of drawings by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: "Hunt's P.R.B. black-and-white art was in the same 'quirky' early-Italian mold as Rossetti's and Millais's, owing much to the Campo Santo engravings…. In the Germ, his etching My Beautiful Lady / Of My Lady in Death, based on Pre-Raphaelite brother Thomas Woolner's poems, are in this early-Italian vein - ascetic, angular, yet oddly emotive, with the standard Pre-Raphaelite hand-covered head, held hands, and oddly positioned legs. Still, in technique they seem tentative, certainly no match for Millais's drawings of the same period" (100-01).
Rodney Engen also feels this is the most important and influential etching of the series for The Germ:
Holman Hunt's etching in the first issue proved the most striking and critically successful. It consisted, in fact, of two etchings upon one plate, and was to become one of the best-known Pre-Raphaelite images. The etchings were intended to illustrate two romantic poems by Thomas Woolner. For the first, My Beautiful Lady, Hunt depicted a young couple as they stroll along a riverbank to the lines,
I love my lady; she is very fair;
Her brow is white, and bound by simple hair
Her spirit sits aloof, and high,
Although it looks thro' her soft eye
Sweetly and tenderly.
Hunt's romantic couple, dressed in medieval robes, pause along the river and as he entreats her, clasping her hand, she turns to pick flowers. It is a serene, peaceful image echoed by the gentle curve of the river and the circular sweep of the trees and meandering river path, all picked out in Hunt's crisp line.
Below this etching Hunt placed a second, smaller horizontal subject to illustrate Of My Lady in Death, showing a lone mourner in a churchyard lying over a grave while a procession of cloaked figures moves slowly behind him. It provides a striking contrast to the other image, a sorrowful hymn to grief as the young man, a shovel at his side, clutches his head in desperation over his dead love. These two poignant etchings, in fact, so impressed the young Burne-Jones that he praised them in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, as 'truly a song without words, for out of its golden silence come voices for all who would harken, feeling a tale of love." [11-12]
It is worth looking at Edward Burne-Jones's full description of his encounter with The Germ to see how profound was the influence that this particular etching had on him as a young undergraduate in Oxford in 1856 soon after his decision not to become a clergyman but to embark on an artistic career:
Some few years ago a monthly periodical was published upon the subject of art and poetry; it appears to have ceased after a few months, not without having spoken something that will live in echoes yet. As the frontispiece of one number was an etching by Holman Hunt, an illustration indeed to a poem, but the latter having so little reference to it, that it may well stand for an independent picture, truly a song without words, and yet not wholly speechless, for out of its golden silence came voices for all who would hearken, telling a tale of love. Two lovers are together in a meadow, by a pool of standing water, and behind them a circle of trees is throwing morning shadows on the grass; she is kneeling, stooping forwards to gather wild flowers growing on the bank, clasped and circled by the arm of him who loves her and shall be her future lord, he is bending lovingly over her, shielding her from harm; yet there is no peril in the water, and the space between her and the edge is great, still he clasps her lightly, guarding her from a danger that is not: judge of it, O lovers! how true it is. But below, in another scene, lies a figure flung upon the foreground, lying all his length, and his face pressed deeply into the fresh mould of a grave, for behind him, in the distance, the nuns are passing, singing Dies irae and Beati mortui [The Day of Wrath and the Blessed Dead], and the bell is sounding close behind him as he lies quiet. Surely he will never rise and come away! wherefore did she die, and how? and was it long after the flower-gathering by the water side on the summer day. I know how it all came to pass, and you would also if you saw the picture: silently, quite silently, has the story taken form. I would not tell the legend as it comes to me, for your version would be altogether otherwise, and yet both must be true: something like this we cry for, is it not like a cry for food? [60]
Bibliography
Bentley, D.M.R.: "The Character of Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and Fictional Prose," Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, New Series XXVII (Fall 2018): 12.
Bronkhurst, Judith: William Holman Hunt. A Catalogue Raisonné. Volume II, Drawings and Watercolours. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006, App.B1: 269-270.
Burne-Jones, Edward. "Essay on the Newcomes." The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine I (January, 1856): 50-61.
Engen, Rodney. Pre-Raphaelite Prints. London: Lund Humphries, 1995.
"The Germ: Thoughts Towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art." The Art Journal XII, (March 1850): 96.
Goldman, Paul: Victorian Illustration. Aldershot, Hants.: Scolar Press, 1996. 8 and 267.
Grieve, Alastair. "Style and Content in Pre-Raphaelite Drawings 1848-50." Pre-Raphaelite Papers, edited by Leslie Parris. London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1984: 23-43.
"Our Weekly Gossip." The Athenaeum No. 1947 (February 18, 1865): 237.
Rix, Brenda. "Prints: "Spreading the Word." In Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, edited by Katharine Lochnan and Carol Jacobi. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2008: 175-176.
Rossetti, William Michael: Introduction to The Germ: Thoughts Towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art. A Facsimile Reprint of the Literary Organ of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Published in 1850.. London: Elliott Stock, 1901. 16.
_____. The P.R. B. Journal. William Michael Rossetti's Diary of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1849-1853, edited by William E. Fredeman. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1975.
Suriano, Gregory R. The Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators. London: The British Library, 2000. 35,100, 101 and 109.
Created 16 April 2025
Last modified 23 April 2025