The Lizard, Cornwall

One of his companions on this trip was the Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson, who was retracing the footsteps of King Arthur.  

The other members of the group were artists Val Prinsep and Thomas Woolner, and the writer and critic Francis Turner Palgrave. In his journal for that year, Palgrave notes: ‘On Sep. 17 we were at Lizard point, where we found H Hunt, and Mr V Prinsep with him, visiting Kynance Cove, which almost seemed to us like a Turner landscape in actual presence, so rich and so varied is the colouring of the serpentine bastions.’ 

The Lizard, Cornwall joins Falmouth Art Gallery directly from the family of Hunt, through which it has passed by descent. The gallery has strong holdings of Cornish landscapes and works by Victorian painters, including Hunt’s Pre-Raphaelite associates Edward Burne-Jones and John William Waterhouse. The painting will feature in the gallery’s forthcoming touring exhibition, ‘The Legend of King Arthur: A Pre-Raphaelite Love Story’, which runs from October this year until September 2023.