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For some reason Rossetti got his act together for The Annunciation (even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.)

I think the "Brotherhood" was pretty silly, more or less on the level of college secret societies, but maybe a little bit more sophisticated. I also never understood how they considered themselves "primitive" - the last word I would use to describe the lot of them (although Rossetti unfortunately is frequently primitive, especially in his preparatory sketches.) . . . but still, they turned out some good work.

The four pictures in order are "Found" by D.G. Rossetti, in the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (nobody else wanted it); "May Morning, Magdalen Tower" by W.H. Hunt (showing the May sunrise choral service on top of the college tower at Magdalen (Oxford). What the Parsi is doing there is anybody's guess), Birmingham (ENG not AL) Art Museum; "The Lady of Shallott" also by Hunt, in the Manchester City Art Museum; and "A Street Scene in Cairo (the Lantern-Maker's Courtship)" also by Hunt, and also in Birmingham. The last was painted on his Middle Eastern tour -- he went to gather material for his Biblical paintings like "The Scapegoat" and "Christ Discovered in the Temple."

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room
She saw the water lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide,
The mirror cracked from side to side,
'The Curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott.

- Tennyson

Here's another darned odd painting by Hunt - "The Triumph of the Innocents".

On the flight into Egypt, the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod appear to the Holy Family, holding symbols of their martyrdom. The infant Jesus sees them and holds out to them the wheat in the ear (that will become the Bread of the Eucharist). The little globes of water rising from the stream contain images of salvation prophecy. The Virgin's face is painted in two different versions (one in Liverpool, one in the Tate) - in this version, she has the serene and somewhat mysterious look of a pagan goddess.

(kind of a heavy theological burden for one painting, though it's a large one!)

Holman Hunt is Thomas Kincaid's spiritual grandfather. Did you ever see Hunt's 'Light of the World' depiction of Christ? Am I the only one who thinks that it is, hands-down, the most sickeningly sweet, maudlin portrait of the Savior ever? It looks as if he confused Jesus with Santa Claus.

Sorry. Something about Holman Hunt's work just ticks me off. His paintings make me want to shoot cute little cherubs from the sky with a shotgun. Go figure.

The four pictures in order are "Found" by D.G. Rossetti, in the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (nobody else wanted it)

LOL! You have some strong feelings about Rossetti, don't you? ;-) The truth is, however, that the pre-Raphaelite paintings in the Delaware Art Museum have been in Delaware since the 1800s, not long after they were actually painted. Samuel Bancroft, whose family owned a textile mill near Wilmington, DE (and not much more than a stone's throw from where the museum is now), bought the paintings during his trips to England, and they were donated to the museum in 1935. I personally like many of the pre-Raphaelites, particularly the ones that had Christian (Anglo-Catholic, even just plain Catholic) themes. The Holman Hunt painting of the Holy Innocents is pretty weird, and isn't among my favorites. However, there are others that I find to be outstanding. For example:

James Collinson - The Renunciation of Queen (St.) Elizabeth of Hungary

James Collinson - The Holy Family

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary

Sir Edward Burnes-Jones - The Morning of the Resurrection

There are also non-religious paintings by the pre-Raphaelites and related artists that I find appealing. Such as:

Arthur Hughes - Ophelia (1865)

John William Waterhouse - The Tempest (Some consider Waterhouse to be influenced by the pre-Raphaelites, while others think otherwise.)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Lady Lilith