Year 1849 Created 1849 Genre Digital art | Medium oil on canvas Location Private collection Period Romanticism | |
 | ||
Dimensions 86.3 cm × 122 cm (34.0 in × 48 in) Similar William Holman Hunt artwork, Romantic artwork | ||
Rienzi vowing to obtain justice for the death of his young brother, slain in a skirmish between the Colonna and the Orsini factions (or simply, Rienzi) is a painting by William Holman Hunt, produced in 1849 and currently in a private collection.
History
This painting, with its extremely long title, was the first of Hunt's works to include 'PRB' (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) on the canvas.
Hunt took his subject from the 1835 novel Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes, by Bulwer Lytton. It was exhibited at the 1849 Royal Academy exhibition (alongside Millais' Lorenzo and Isabella) with the following excerpt from the novel:
In 1847, Hunt repeatedly sat up all night to finish John Ruskin's Modern Painters (1843); in Rienzi he attempted to put into practice all that he had read. The background particularly was painted in careful detail trying to satisfy Ruskin's stringent requirements. As can be seen from some of Hunt's later work, such as The Hireling Shepherd (1851) and The Awakening Conscience (1854), the artist often experienced great difficulty with painting his figures in natural poses. This is evident here in the portrayal of the soldier on the far left of the painting.