| Artist | William Holman Hunt |
|---|---|
| Year | 1849-1850 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Location | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England |
A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids is a painting by William Holman Hunt that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850. It was a companion to John Everett Millais's Christ in the House of His Parents. Both artists sought to depict similar episodes from very early Christian history, portraying families helping an injured individual. Both stressed the primitivism of the scene.[1]
Hunt's painting depicts a family of ancient Britons occupying a crudely constructed hut by the riverside. They are attending a missionary who is hiding from a mob of pagan Celts. A Druid is visible in the background pointing towards a missionary who is being taken by one of the mob. A stone circle is noticeable behind the missionary, but these scenes can only be glimpsed through gaps in the back of the hut used by the Christian family. The contrast between Christian and Druidic symbols is identified by the painting of a red cross over a stone within the Christian family's hut.
Hunt's painting was not as controversial as Millais' companion piece, but was heavily criticised for the odd composition and contorted poses of the figures.[1] In 1860 Florence Claxton's painting The Choice of Paris: An Idyll (1860), parodied the composition of Hunt's picture, along with other works by the Pre-Raphaelite artists of the previous years.[2]
Hunt himself continued to believe it to be one of his best works. In 1872, referring to the painting as "the Early Xtians", he wrote in a letter to Edward Lear, stating that "sometimes when I look at the Early Xtians I feel rather ashamed that I have got no further than later years have brought me, but the truth is that at twenty – health, enthusiasm and yet unpunished confidence in oneself carries a man very near his ultimate length of tether."[1]