The Scapegoat
Engraver Charles Henry Mottram British
After William Holman Hunt British
Publisher Henry Graves & Co. British
Not on view
This grand reproductive engraving has been called "Mottram's greatest tour de force." It is based on a painting by Holman Hunt that caused a sensation when shown at the Royal Academy in 1856. The artist recorded the Dead Sea setting during a visit to Syria and Palestine in 1854, offering viewers a sense of the reality of the Holy Land with an Old Testament subject of ritualized sacrifice that Protestant viewers saw as a symbolic precedent for the sufferings of Jesus. In 1896 Ford Madox Brown wrote that "Hunt's 'Scapegoat' requires to be seen to be believed" since "only then can it be understood how, by the might of genius, out of an old goat, and some saline incrustations, can be made one of the most tragic and impressive works in the annals of art." The publisher Henry Graves worked with Mottram on numerous occasions to produce prints of high quality issued in large editions to appeal to a wide public.
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