Walter Howell Deverell

William Holman Hunt

Date: 1853

Materials: Black & red chalk with wash

Bright's Disease

Walter Howell Deverell was seriously ill with Bright's Disease when this portrait was drawn in the autumn of 1853.

He was barely 26 years old, but this illness coupled with an earlier bout of scarlet fever led to him dying before the winter was out in February 1854.

He was popular with all of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and remained cheerful in spite his health problems.

Little appreciated

His work was little appreciated during his lifetime, the only work he ever sold being 'A Pet' and that bought only by Hunt & Millais to help him out.

Deverell's strength of character and good looks shine through the portrait. 

"One of the handsomest young men I have known; belonging to a type not properly to be termed feminine, but which might rather be dubbed 'troubadorish' ".

William Michael Rossetti