“You know that in the most beautiful former conceptions of the Flight into Egypt, the Holy Family were always represented as watched over and ministered to by attendant angels. But only the safety and peace of the Divine Child and its mother are thought of. No sadness or wonder of meditation returns to the desolate homes of Bethlehem.

“But in this English picture all the story of the escape, as of the flight, is told in fulness of peace and yet of compassion. The travel is in the dead of the night, the way unseen and unknown; but partly stooping from the starlight, and partly floating on the desert mirage, move with the Holy Family the glorified souls of the Innocents. Clear in celestial light, and gathered into child garlands of gladness, they look to the Child in whom they live, and yet for whom they die. Waters of the River of Life flow before on the sands; the Christ stretches out His arms to the nearest of them—leaning from His mother’s breast.… You may well imagine for yourselves how the painter’s … better than magical power of giving effects of intense light, has aided the effort of his imagination, while the passion of his subject has developed in him a swift grace of invention which, for my own part, I never recognised in his design till now.”
Ruskin.

The canvas is now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Mr. J. T. Middlemore has a replica.

Please click on the image for a larger image.
Please click [here] for a modern image of the painting.

“The Scapegoat”—a subject which he had thought of suggesting to Landseer—was painted by the shore of the Dead Sea. After many negotiations, for the country was in a troubled state and he risked his life by going, he encamped there, with a little band of followers to protect him, and a goat. Soleiman, one of the Arabs, desired—though only seven years younger than himself—to be his son. By what name should he call him? Hunt? That was no name at all. Holman? That was not much better. William, however, pronounced “Wullaum,” he “found very good.”

One night, when the dews fell heavily, and they were some way from the encampment, Hunt, afraid of the effect of a chill, began waltzing—with his gun for a partner—to keep himself warm. Soleiman was overcome with amazement. “Henceforth let me be your brother,” said he—unconscious that he had become a Pre-Raphaelite—as he flung his arms round the neck of this wonderful man. “You are indeed inspired; you dance like a dervish; you are one. Can you do it again?” “Yes, my brother,” and away the wonderful man went, a second and a third time, again and yet again. He was asked to repeat the performance for the benefit of the others, who yelled with delight when they heard of it, but this he declined to do; and the next day Soleiman invited him to marry the daughter of the sheik his uncle, and to become sheik instead of himself when the old man died, that he might lead the tribe in battle, and act as dancing-dervish in times of peace. Where had he been born? In London? What was London?—a mountain? or a plain? Not a city like Jerusalem with walls and gates and shops?—“Never, my brother! I will never believe that you are a citizen—never! I know you are an English bedawee, and you were born in a tent.” In spite of all this filial and fraternal affection, Soleiman was not much good when danger threatened. “There are robbers,” he declared one day; “they are coming this way—one, two, three, on horseback, and two—wait, three—yes, four on foot. You must put down your umbrella, shut up your picture, cover it with stones. They will not be here for an hour. We will go up in the mountains.” “No,” said Hunt, he should stay where he was, it was a good work that he had in hand; Allah would help him; he was quite content. After several passionate appeals, off went Soleiman by himself, taking the donkey. The robbers presently appeared, seven of them, on foot and on horseback, armed with long spears, with guns and swords and clubs. The painter painted on unconcernedly. They drew up in a semicircle round him, and the chief shouted for water. The artist looked at him from his head to his horse’s feet—at the others also, and then resumed his work. Again the chief clamoured. They might have water, the artist said at last, since the day was hot; but Englishmen were not the servants of Arabs, and he was an Englishman; they must fetch it themselves. And he continued to paint. “Are you here alone?” they inquired. “No; there was an Arab.” Thereupon they requested that he might be called. “But I don’t want him,” said the artist. “We want him.” “Well then, you call him. His name is Soleiman.” Soleiman, however, made no reply. “There is no one, or he would answer,” they said distrustfully. “He is afraid. You know best how to reassure him.” At length Soleiman came slowly down through the rocks, driving the donkey. A long conversation followed—a wonderful description by his “brother” of the gun with two souls which he had, of the pistol that would fire more than five times without reloading, of his accomplishments as a dancing-dervish and as a story-teller (especially about Lot), of the manner in which he wrote all day in coloured inks the sky, the mountains, the plain, the sea, even the salt, on that large paper.

The Arabs became intensely suspicious. What could these things mean? He had the white goat led over the ground, they supposed, to charm it. He was a magician. He would go back to England; he would wipe out the coloured inks with a sponge; he would find the Cities of the Plain underneath; he would be lord of a great treasure. For the present they agreed that they would let him alone; but he considered it prudent to waltz home that night.

“My dreams kept me with the Brotherhood,” he says. Once he had fallen asleep within his tent, he was back in England among the old set, “talking of plans and thoughts beloved of both.”

The Academy hung “The Scapegoat” on the line; and it was sold for £450, but “The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple,” begun in Jerusalem, could not be finished for some time; he was compelled to work at smaller pictures which would bring in ready money. In the end, after a friendly consultation with his old foe, Dickens, he asked and obtained for it £5500, the largest sum that had ever yet been paid for an English picture.