A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

William Holman Hunt painted A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary in 1849-1850, one of the founding works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The painting imagines early Christians in Roman Britain, combining religious subject matter with the meticulous naturalism that was the Brotherhood's calling card. Hunt painted outdoors to achieve the truthful landscape effects that the Pre-Raphaelites demanded.

The painting's intense, vivid colors and precise botanical detail reflect the Pre-Raphaelite rejection of academic convention. Hunt's technique of painting over a wet white ground creates a luminous, enamel-like surface that gives each detail equal emphasis.