Detail of the Baron's head from The Eve of Saint Agnes

This image shows part of The Eve of Saint Agnes by William Holman Hunt. The full painting illustrates a scene from John Keats’ poem of the same name; the full title of the picture is ‘The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the Drunkenness Attending the Revelry’. It was painted in 1848, when Hunt was only 21 years old and still a student at the Royal Academy Schools. In his memoir, ‘Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’, published in 1905, he recalls returning to the studio he shared with fellow student John Everett Millais to work on the painting late into the night. The two young artists worked on each other’s paintings.This particular image shows the head of the bearded Baron figure in the painting. This head was painted by Millais.