"Fine Arts: The Royal Academy Exhibition." Spectator 25.1244 (1 May 1852), 422.

excerpt

The West Room is the stronghold of the best among our younger men. Here are Millais’s wondrous "Ophelia" and "Eve of St. Bartholomew," Hunt’s equally extraordinary "Hireling Shepherd," the immense "Hagar" of Mr. Armitage, Mr. Cave Thomas’s "Laura in Avignon"–which shows how much progress has been made in colour by this rising painter–Mr. Ford Brown’s "Jesus washing Peter’s feet," a dingy "Henry Taylor" from Mr. Watts’s hand, and the best of Pickersgill’s contributions.