Little Nell and Her Grandfather

Painted in 1845 when Hunt was just eighteen, this early work depicting Little Nell and her grandfather from Charles Dickens's 'The Old Curiosity Shop' (1840–41) demonstrates both the young painter's literary sensibility and the immediate impact Dickens's fiction had on the visual imagination of his contemporaries. Dickens's portrayal of Little Nell's death had provoked extraordinary public grief — contemporaries described men and women weeping openly — and the characters remained potent subjects for painters and illustrators throughout the Victorian period. Hunt's decision to take this subject at such a young age reflects the literary culture that saturated his formation and the Pre-Raphaelite tendency, developed in the following decade, to treat narrative subjects from literature with the same seriousness given to biblical or historical themes. The Sheffield Galleries preserve this early work as evidence of Hunt's development before the Brotherhood was formed.

An early student work showing Hunt working within conventional academic practices he would later consciously reject. The composition and handling reflect training methods then current at the Royal Academy Schools rather than the radical naturalism Hunt developed in collaboration with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 onward. Nonetheless, the treatment of the figures shows attentive observation of physiognomy and emotional expression.