May Morning on Magdalen Tower
May Morning on Magdalen Tower is a 1890 Pre-Raphaelite oil painting by William Holman Hunt.
Description
The painting depicts Magdalen College Choir singing on top of Magdalen Tower in Oxford during May Morning celebrations. Traditionally, the choir sings two hymns, the Hymnus Eucharisticus and "Now Is the Month of Maying", at 6 o'clock in the morning to start the annual celebration in Oxford on 1st May. The painting is in the collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool.The Magdalen College choirmaster John Varley Roberts is pictured on the left with a beard, directing the choir. Two of Roberts' predecessors are also in the painting, Sir John Stainer, and Stainer's successor, Sir Walter Parratt. Stainer was the Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford by the time the painting was finished. John Rouse Bloxam, organist and historian of Magdalen College, is fourth from the right. Holman Hunt also drew a coloured portrait of Bloxam in chalk.