I’m always fascinated by this picture by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt. It is a depiction from a scene in Keats poem Isabella. For those of you who don’t know her deceased lover’s head is I the pot of basil! The detail in the picture is extraordinary and Hunt has an amazing ability to depict the slightly translucent material of her dress. Hunt’s wife Fanny Waugh modelled for the picture in Italy not long before her death in childbirth (an all too common thing in those days). Hunt then scandalised the nation by marrying his deceased wife’s sister Edith. Those Victorian’s eh? Who’d have guessed it!
