William Henry Hunt (painter)

[3] His father, John Hunt, was a tin-plate worker, making and selling small containers, such as canisters and boxes, which he also decorated.

This is at least partially true, as Hunt had deformed legs that hampered his movement and may well have contributed to his eventual abandonment of landscape work in favor of still life and figures.

[5] In 1806 Hunt persuaded his father to allow him to train as an artist,[6] becoming apprenticed for a term of seven years to John Varley, the watercolorist, drawing master, astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake.

His subjects, especially those of his later life, are often simple; but, considered technically, his works exhibit all the resources of the watercolour painter's craft, from the purest transparent tinting to the boldest use of gouache, stippling on prepared opaque grounds, use of rough paper, and scraping for highlights and texture.

Several characteristic examples of Hunt's work, as the Boy with a Goat, A Brown Study, Plums, and Primroses and Birds' Nests are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

[16] According to the Redgraves, "The works of Hunt differ widely from his contemporaries: they have a character of their own, and many qualities which place him as an artist, in his somewhat narrow range, on a level with the highest.".