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Lot Essay
Florence Elizabeth Thomas (1833-1915) was the daughter of Millais’s first patron, the barrister Ralph ‘Sergeant’ Thomas. In 1862 she married Alfred Williams, an engineer, whose career led them into a peripatetic life between Australia and London. An artist herself, she exhibited works in both countries, including Ophelia, which was chosen for the inaugural exhibition at the Art Society of New South Wales in 1880, and was undoubtedly influenced by Millais’s own painting of the same name which she had seen in Millais’s studio in 1852 before it was sent to the Royal Academy (D. Cherry and J. Helland (eds.), Local/global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth Century, Aldershot, 2006, p. 27).
James Wyatt (1774-1853), an early owner of the painting, was an Oxford collector, art dealer, print-publisher, curator of the Duke of Marlborough's collection at Blenheim, and Mayor of Oxford from 1842 to 1843. Millais evidently knew Wyatt by 1846 when he painted a watercolour of his grand-daughter Mary (private collection). Three years later Wyatt bought Millais's painting Cymon and Iphigenia (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), and also commissioned two portraits: one of himself with his grand-daughter Mary (1849, private collection); and one of his daughter-in-law Eliza Wyatt, née Moorman with her daughter Sarah (c. 1850, Tate Britain). The sale of his pictures held in these Rooms in February 1883 also included other works by Millais including a sketch for Isabella, and Perseus Saving Andromeda.
We are grateful to Jason Rosenfeld, Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
James Wyatt (1774-1853), an early owner of the painting, was an Oxford collector, art dealer, print-publisher, curator of the Duke of Marlborough's collection at Blenheim, and Mayor of Oxford from 1842 to 1843. Millais evidently knew Wyatt by 1846 when he painted a watercolour of his grand-daughter Mary (private collection). Three years later Wyatt bought Millais's painting Cymon and Iphigenia (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), and also commissioned two portraits: one of himself with his grand-daughter Mary (1849, private collection); and one of his daughter-in-law Eliza Wyatt, née Moorman with her daughter Sarah (c. 1850, Tate Britain). The sale of his pictures held in these Rooms in February 1883 also included other works by Millais including a sketch for Isabella, and Perseus Saving Andromeda.
We are grateful to Jason Rosenfeld, Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.