30th April 2014
On a recent visit to The Lady Lever Art Gallery, I saw a wonderful painting by William Holman Hunt entitled May Morning on Magdalen Tower.
On the first day of May every year the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford climbs the chapel tower and sing the Hymnus Eucharisticus to greet the rising sun. William Holman Hunt started in May 1888 to sketch the event. The picture is framed in a lovely copper frame which had been made by The Guild of Handicrafts. The frogs and fishes within the frame were there to illustrate that they had been created by the warmth of the sun. The sky in the painting is so beautiful, Holman Hunt had climbed the tower on a number of occasions at 4am to study the sunrise.
Posted in William Morris by Laura