Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1829-1896)
Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1829-1896)

A fishing expedition: An illustrated letter to John Leech

Details
Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1829-1896)
A fishing expedition: An illustrated letter to John Leech
on an autograph letter inscribed '83 Gower St 13 June 1853. My dear Leech, When your note arrived this morning my head was in a state of puzzlement arriving from too much application over 30 yards of Mr. Cheek's most crisply twisting flyline, which in its disentangled spaces resembled the smoke from a cottage chimney pencilled by a genius of seven years old - Thus... I don't believe in Spirit Tapping, but I believe some spiritual monkey has a grudge against anglers, and in revenge, sports with their put-aside tackle, for on examination I found I had nothing but elaborately knotted lines, mangy cork floats, and gut that would not play a stickleback - Since the morning I have had eight & six pennyworth from the Golden Perch [?] and I hope to try it in the manner illustrated. Friday will do as well as Saturday but it is an unlucky day, and it would break my heart if we don't catch something, as we both take shower baths we can't take a cold. Very Sincerely. yr. John Everett Millais John Leech Esq.'
pen and black ink on paper
7 1/8 x 8 7/8 in. (18.1 x 22.6 cm)

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Clare Keiller
Clare Keiller

Lot Essay

This delightful and characteristic letter from Millais to his closest friend, the illustrator John Leech, contains a remarkable sketch of the artist, being held back by another man, standing in the bow of a low rowboat in his favourite fishing hat, and stretching out to maintain a hold on his rod, snapped in two, but still attached by the flyline, its hook lodged in the mouth of a large fighting stickleback. A third man, staring at a caricatural reflection of himself, holds fast to an oar that has come loose from its moorings and that he lodges in the riverbed to anchor the craft. On Monday 13 June 1853, Millais was a little over a week from setting off to Scotland with his brother William Henry, and John and Effie Ruskin, a fateful trip which would result in some of the most satisfying angling of his life, a magnificent portrait of the writer (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and the young Millais and Effie falling deeply in love.

We are grateful to Dr Jason Rosenfeld, Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.

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