'The Garden of Gethsemane', William Dyce

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The subject is Jesus praying alone in Gethsemane: the setting is a wild Scottish glen at twilight. Christ’s spiritual journey is symbolised by the stony path leading to a dense forest under a waxing moon.

Dyce, a deeply committed Christian, believed in a contemporary Christ, and represented him as a real person with whom the viewer could identify. The meticulous technique reflects Dyce’s admiration for the Pre-Raphaelites|.

The painting was in the collection of John Farnworth of Liverpool, where George Holt almost certainly saw and admired it years before he was able to buy it.