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A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

Image credit: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

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Originally conceived as an entry on the theme 'An Act of Mercy' for a Gold Medal competition at the Royal Academy in 1849, this painting depicts an early incident in the history of the English church. A Christian family is hiding a priest from a crowd of heathens and Druids, who have already caught another priest in the background. The painting is full of symbolic allusions, in keeping with contemporary High Anglican thinking: the priest recalls Christ and his disciples, the child with the fur loincloth John the Baptist and the older youth squeezing grapes evokes the Eucharist. It was one of Hunt's earliest Pre-Raphaelite paintings and caused controversy when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Oxford

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Title

A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

Date

1850

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 111 x W 141 cm

Accession number

WA1894.1

Acquisition method

bequeathed by Martha Combe (née Edwards), 1893

Work type

Painting

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Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Beaumont Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 2PH England

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Artist or maker

William Holman Hunt

1827–1910

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