It was a chapter of accidents bearing pain and long long trial to me. The earliest part of my work was the sketching in of the whole composition and the painting of the background. No test of the suitability of my surface could have been more satisfactory as far as was needed for the point reached. I almost dismissed anxiety about the final results, and I had advanced considerably with my work before the missing boxes arrived. It seemed a great and needless waste to recommence my labours when so much apparently had been done. It would have been well for me, however, had I thrown all my work aside, and begun again, and this indeed it would have been even years later, for from the moment when I suspected with what fatal consequences my first start had been beset, until the moment, when in England, at the end of 1882, I gave up the picture, I always had reason to persuade myself that a little more patience—perhaps even the perseverance further of two more weeks—might overcome the difficulty intervening between the stage arrived at and the entire completion of the picture. I will not weary the reader with a statement of all the vexatious incidents of my trouble, but it is only a needful excuse for me to state that a studio built specially for me by German instead of Arab builders, let in the rain as though the roof had been made of open wire, and that when this worry had passed, I was under summons to come back to London by a certain date, and this made the difficulty greater of deliberately estimating the amount of danger which I incurred in advancing my work on the imperfect surface.

When I opened the picture in London and placed it in a fair light I could not fail to see how much precious time had been wasted from the fact that all my drawing and modelling and colour indeed was marred by irregularity of the plane on which they were given. I called in an expert to help me in the course to be followed, and he, as it happened, urged me still to trust to the means already used to overcome the evil, expressing the opinion that it was then nearly at an end. Alas! this proved to be far from the case, although I called in the best judgment to guide me at intervals, and I confided the work for relining on the strongest sailcloth canvas to the hands of one of the most skilful of restorers. Every revived hope ended in disappointment, until I having persevered with it for seven years and a half, finally abandoned it, and commenced on the new painting on January 1st, 1883. Since then, when away for my health, the reliner again had the old picture to treat on a plan of a radical character agreed upon between us. It was to cut out the central part of the sheeting containing the group of the Virgin and Child, to lift up the surrounding cloth, to fray out its edges, to insert a piece larger by an inch than the opening, with margins also frayed in the opposite direction, and to place the whole already relined picture upon another sailcloth. Unlimited time was given for this experiment, and I am happy to say that now the picture is thoroughly sound, and that it will soon be ready. The present exhibited painting is about four inches broader and two inches higher than the Jerusalem picture: it is also changed in several points, some of which modifications I have since adopted as improvement for the old picture: other additions, however, are only in the present painting.

W. HOLMAN HUNT.

Draycott Lodge, Fulham,
February 23, 1885.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

The
Triumph of the Innocents

This Picture, now being exhibited by the Fine Art Society, 148, New Bond Street, will be reproduced by Photogravure on a scale of 20½ inches by 33¼ inches, in its engraved portions.

It will be published at the following prices:

Artist’s Proofs£10100
Lettered Proofs£550
Prints£220