John Young Hunter

Purchased from the artist in 1902 by Alexander King Clark

London, Royal Academy, 1902, no. 119.

Hull, Corporation Art Gallery, 1903

London, The Fine Art Society, Figure Pictures in Oil, Tempera and Watercolour by J Young Hunter and Mary Y Hunter, April 1903

Royal Academy Notes, London, 1902, p.55.

Royal Academy Pictures, London, 1902, p.45

Globe, 26 March 1902, p.8

Evening Mail, 9 May 1902, p.7

Reading Mercury, 10 May 1902, p.2

Globe, 12 May 1902, p.8

Western Daily Press, 19 May 1902, p.3

Gentlewoman, 24 May 1902, p.44

London Evening Standard, 29 May 1902, p.4

Athenaeum, 3 May 1903, p.569

Hull Daily Mail, 30 September 1903, p.5

Mansfield Reporter, 1 July 1921, p.5

The subject of Forest Lovers is enigmatic which is typical of the type of art inspired by the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood that was painted at the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Artists like John William Waterhouse, Frank Dicksee, Frank Cadogan Cowper and Edmund Blair Leighton continued to paint subjects of medieval romance and chivalry long after the first blooming of Pre-Raphaelitism half a century earlier. John Young Hunter was similarly interested in subjects inspired by poetry and literature, myth and legend. Rather than following his father, Colin Young Hunter, and painting the realism of the life of Hebridean fishermen, he took his inspiration from other members of 'the Holland Park Circle' including his neighbours Frederic, Lord Leighton, G.F. Watts and Sir Luke Fildes. The American artist John Singer Sargent was a close friend and also influential in the direction the young artist took. Sargent’s flare for elegance can be detected in the superbly painted dress of the damsel in Forest Lovers, but otherwise it shows the close study of Pre-Raphaelite pictures of the 1850s and 1860s. The art critic A.L. Baldry described Hunter as being one of 'the new Pre-Raphaelites'.

A beautiful maiden in a brilliantly-hued blue dress lined with crimson silk, is seated in a forest glade, whimsically toying with her necklace as an amorous young man plays a lute beside her. He is wearing chainmail and has a sword at his side and a lance and shield rest against the tree. This is all straightforward and recalls Rossetti and Burne-Jones’ depictions of tales from the Morte d’Arthur and particularly the work of Arthur Hughes. We are left to wonder at the significance of the oranges clustered heavily on the bough, the blue-tit and the magpie – perhaps a symbol of sorrow. The birds may indicate the fecundity of nature and the beauty of the music that has charmed them of their fear just as Orpheus calmed the beasts of the forest with his lyre. There seems to be a tension between religious virtue – symbolised by the pendant of a cross on her necklace – and earthly pleasure suggested by the ripe fruit. When Forest Lovers was included among the twenty-one pictures exhibited by Hunter at the Fine Art Society in 1903 alongside seventeen pictures by his wife, the critic for the Athenaeum magazine ventured; 'The Forest Lovers, seems an echo of Mr Holman Hunt's scene from 'Two Gentlemen of Verona...'' (2 May 1903, p.569) comparison being with Hunt's Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus of 1851 (Birmingham City Art Gallery).

Forest Lovers was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902 where among the prominent exhibits was Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes' Take, Oh Take those Lips Away and Edmund Blair Leighton's The End of the Song both of which depict a medieval maiden and a minstrel in a wood. La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Frank Dicksee also shows the fairy-maid on horseback with her enthralled knight at her side. Young Hunter's painting was praised as; 'important because it represents extremely well a school of thought and practice which has many followers among the younger artists of the present day. It has something of the Pre-Raphaelite precision and insistence upon exactness of statement, but it has a much more modern feeling for romance.' (Globe, 12 May 1902, p8). The same critic reiterated their admiration for the picture a couple of weeks later, commending the 'romantic quality, and is very sound and straightforward in technical method.' (Globe, 26 March 1902, p.8) The painting was described by the correspondent for Reading Mercury when it was shown at the Royal Academy; 'Mr. Young Hunter's "Forest Lovers" shows a lady with a knight at her feet sitting under an orange grove, his red lance leaning against a tree, and his white horse feeding in the distance. The green of the leaves, reinforced by the warm tone of the fruit, is accentuated by a patch of light formed by the plumage of the magpie that plays the part of chaperon. (Reading Mercury, 10 May 1902, p.2) It was illustrated in Royal Academy Pictures in 1902 and the knight's horse is clearly present - pentimenti shows that the artist painted over this element at a later stage, perhaps feeling that the scale was not quite right. When it was exhibited in Hull in 1903 the art critic for the local newspaper wrote; 'There are two reasons why J. Young Hunter's "Forest Lovers" should be found interesting - first because of the beautiful figure drawing and the general treatment, and second because of its literary interest. The picture takes the mind back to Maurice Hewlett's fine book at once.' (Hull Daily News, 30 September 1903, p.5) The reference to Maurice Hewlett's book Forest Lovers is interesting as it was published only four years before Young Hunter painted his picture. It is possible therefore that it depicts the happy end of the tale of Prosper le Gai and Isolut la Desirous, who spends most of the novel trying to make Prosper fall in love with her despite his insistence that romantic love is pointless - he succumbs, of course.

The model for the female figure in Forest Lovers was probably the artist’s wife Mary who was also a talented artist and had a considerable reputation as a professional painter. She also posed for two comparable pictures, Hunter’s Royal Academy exhibit of 1899 In My Lady’s Garden (Tate) and Vanity Fair of 1911 (Christie’s, London, 29 July 2020, lot 37). Mary and John Young Hunter lived for a while at the suitably romantic Gifford Hall in Wickhambrook in Suffolk, an Elizabethan moated manor-house. They later moved to London so that they could pursue careers painting Society portraits. After seeing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in London Young Hunter sailed for America to pursue his fascination with Native American culture, living in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico.

A curious footnote to the story of Forest Lovers occurred in the summer of 1921 when the painting was used as the basis for a tableaux vivant performed at St Peter's Institute in Mansfield in which a Miss Mills and Miss Moore took the parts of the knight and maiden. The fact that this was performed in 1921 demonstrates the enduring fascination with romantic art.