thumb|william morris hunt, 1879 william morris hunt (march 31, 1824 &ndash; september 8, 1879), american painter, was born at brattleboro, vermont to jane maria (leavitt) hunt and hon. jonathan hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in american art. william morris hunt was the leading painter of mid-19th-century boston, massachusetts.olivia buckminster lothrop, painted by william morris hunt, mid-1860s, museum of fine arts, boston ==life and career== hunt's father's family, the hunt family of vermont, were among vermont's founders and largest landowners; his mother's a family of wealth and prominence in connecticut.the history of the descendants of john dwight, of dedham, mass., benjamin woodbridge dwight, new york, 1874 hunt attended harvard college but withdrew in his junior year.the class of 1844, harvard college, fifty years after graduation, prepared by the class secretary edward wheelwright, john wilson and son, cambridge, 1896 having been denied the opportunity to paint and draw by an overbearing father, jane leavitt hunt resolved that her children would be given the chance to study the arts in the best academiesâeven if it meant moving to europe to attend them.art-life of william morris hunt, helen mary knowlton, little, brown and company, boston, mass., 1899  following the untimely death of his congressman father from cholera, hunt's mother jane took him and his brothers to switzerland, the south of france and to rome, where hunt studied with couture in paris and then came under the influence of jean-franÃ§ois millet, from whom he learned the principles of the barbizon school. the hunt family remained in europe for a dozen years. during part of that time william morris hunt and his brother richard morris hunt shared an apartment at 1 rue jacob, close by the Ãcole des beaux-arts, where william studied painting under thomas couture. "from the training and inspiration each of the brothers was to experience in the ne
1824_births 1879_deaths 19th-century_artists 19th_century_in_Boston,_Massachusetts American_expatriates_in_France American_realist_painters American_romantic_painters American_sculptors Artists_from_Boston,_Massachusetts Artists_who_committed_suicide Harvard_University_alumni Hunt_family_of_Vermont Landscape_artists People_from_Brattleboro,_Vermont Phillips_Academy_alumni Suicides_by_drowning Suicides_in_New_Hampshire