A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

Hunt was 22 when he showed this at the Royal Academy in 1850, and it drew the same abuse the critics were throwing that year at the whole young Pre-Raphaelite circle. He and his friend John Everett Millais had agreed to paint matching subjects from the earliest days of Christianity in Britain. Millais painted Christ in a carpenter's shop. Hunt painted a family of ancient Britons hiding a wounded missionary from a Druid mob, one of whom you can see in the distance dragging off a second missionary. Almost everything carries a further meaning. The boy in the fur cloth stands for John the Baptist, and the youth pressing grapes into a bowl points to the wine of the Mass. Reviewers laughed at the cramped, awkward poses, but Hunt went on calling it one of his best things.