Personal tragedy suffuses this portrait. Fanny Waugh Hunt, wife of artist William Holman Hunt, died before her portrait had been completed. William and Fanny married in December 1865. In August 1866 the couple set out for the Holy Land, where the artist planned to paint scenes of the life of Christ in the most authentic setting possible. They were delayed in Florence, Italy, where day after day in intense heat Fanny posed for Hunt behind a chair that concealed her pregnancy. Their son was born in October; two months later Fanny died of complications from the delivery. After returning to London, the grieving Hunt continued the portrait with the aid of his memory and a photograph. Insistent on accurate backgrounds and props, he retrieved Fanny's paisley shawl, dress, and cameo brooch from Florence. The rich interior evokes upper-class "artistic" taste with its Chinese porcelain vase and gold mirror frame, Venetian glass bowl and chandelier, Persian pottery dish, and elegantly framed watercolors. Many of these objects are seen through the multiple mirror reflections that seem to mingle a traditional wry comment on the vanity of this world's treasures with an observation on eternity and the dimming of receding memory. He also painted a self-portrait that he originally intended as a pendant to Fanny's portrait, so that "poor little Cyril, my baby, might have both father and mother to look at when another generation has found all of our places empty."

百度翻译：http://fanyi.baidu.com

　　亨特结婚了两次。在他与模特儿Annie Miller的婚约失败后，他与Fanny Waugh结婚，以她作为Isabella的模特儿，并在她于意大利死于分娩后替她雕刻了坟墓。他第二任妻子Edith则是Fanny的妹妹，由于当时英国法律禁止与死去妻子的姊妹通婚，他们到了国外进行婚礼。这段婚姻造成他们与许多家人断绝关系，包括Edith和Fanny的第三个妹妹Alice的丈夫—前拉斐尔派同僚托马斯·伍尔纳（Thomas Woolner）。