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Lot Essay
The sitter was the younger daughter of Thomas Evans Lees of Woodfield, Oldham. Millais also painted her elder sister Gracia on the same scale and at the same date, and both portraits were shown at the Royal Academy in 1875. Nothing is known of the commission, but it seems likely that Lees was a wealthy North Country businessman or industrialist of the type that was so active in patronising Victorian artists. Millais, who had been a Royal Academician since 1863, was already able to command high prices, and the portrait of Gracia Lees (private collection) shows the sitter dressed in the height of fashion. Both portraits remained in the Lees family until the early 1980s.
The paintings are in the freer and bolder style that Millais adopted in his later career, revealing it for the first time in Souvenir of Velazquez (fig. 1), his Royal Academy Diploma picture of 1868 (Fig. 1), which pays homage to one of the principle influences behind his change of manner. The two pictures are also typical of the 1870s in that Millais turned increasingly to portraiture at this time, making his name with such imposing examples as Hearts are Trumps, a group likeness of three sisters inspired by Reynolds, and the commanding Mrs Bischoffsheim (both Tate Gallery), which were exhibited at the RA respectively in 1872 and 1873. This development, together with the popularity of such contemporary subject pictures as The Boyhood of Raleigh of 1870 and The North-West Passage of 1874 (both Tate Gallery), dramatically increased his income, and enabled him to build a palatial new house, 2 Palace Gate, in 1878.
From an early date Millais had shown an astonishing ability to capture the innocence of childhood. The two well-known paintings My First Sermon and My Second Sermon (Guildhall Art Gallery), exhibited at the RA in 1863 and 1864, had been enormously successful, and were followed by equally appealing subjects in the same vein. No doubt his reputation in this field inspired Lees and his wife to commission him to paint their daughters, whose portraits were in fact some of the earliest the artist executed of children who were not members of his own family. In this sense they may be seen as prototypes of the numerous child portraits that he was to paint in later life. Many were to be thinly disguised as 'fancy pictures' with such titles as The Empty Nest, The Orphans or Little Miss Muffit, and the likeness of Eveline Lees is as much a painting of this type as it is a conventional portrait. Indeed she toys with a spray of flowers in precisely the way that many of the children hold blossoms or a small pet in these winsome studies.
The two portraits were well received when they were exhibited in 1875. The Art Journal's critic felt that the artist 'shone much more brilliantly' that year than in his subject pictures, and particularly liked those of 'the two sweet little daughters of Mr Evans Lees'; while F.G.Stephens, Millais' old comrade in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, now installed as art critic of the Athenaeum, admired the way that Eveline's portrait was 'broadly and vigourously painted'. Both portraits were included in Millais' memorial exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1898.
An oil sketch for the portrait of Eveline Lees is in a private collection (photograph in Witt Library, mistakenly identifying the sitter as her sister Gracia).
The paintings are in the freer and bolder style that Millais adopted in his later career, revealing it for the first time in Souvenir of Velazquez (fig. 1), his Royal Academy Diploma picture of 1868 (Fig. 1), which pays homage to one of the principle influences behind his change of manner. The two pictures are also typical of the 1870s in that Millais turned increasingly to portraiture at this time, making his name with such imposing examples as Hearts are Trumps, a group likeness of three sisters inspired by Reynolds, and the commanding Mrs Bischoffsheim (both Tate Gallery), which were exhibited at the RA respectively in 1872 and 1873. This development, together with the popularity of such contemporary subject pictures as The Boyhood of Raleigh of 1870 and The North-West Passage of 1874 (both Tate Gallery), dramatically increased his income, and enabled him to build a palatial new house, 2 Palace Gate, in 1878.
From an early date Millais had shown an astonishing ability to capture the innocence of childhood. The two well-known paintings My First Sermon and My Second Sermon (Guildhall Art Gallery), exhibited at the RA in 1863 and 1864, had been enormously successful, and were followed by equally appealing subjects in the same vein. No doubt his reputation in this field inspired Lees and his wife to commission him to paint their daughters, whose portraits were in fact some of the earliest the artist executed of children who were not members of his own family. In this sense they may be seen as prototypes of the numerous child portraits that he was to paint in later life. Many were to be thinly disguised as 'fancy pictures' with such titles as The Empty Nest, The Orphans or Little Miss Muffit, and the likeness of Eveline Lees is as much a painting of this type as it is a conventional portrait. Indeed she toys with a spray of flowers in precisely the way that many of the children hold blossoms or a small pet in these winsome studies.
The two portraits were well received when they were exhibited in 1875. The Art Journal's critic felt that the artist 'shone much more brilliantly' that year than in his subject pictures, and particularly liked those of 'the two sweet little daughters of Mr Evans Lees'; while F.G.Stephens, Millais' old comrade in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, now installed as art critic of the Athenaeum, admired the way that Eveline's portrait was 'broadly and vigourously painted'. Both portraits were included in Millais' memorial exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1898.
An oil sketch for the portrait of Eveline Lees is in a private collection (photograph in Witt Library, mistakenly identifying the sitter as her sister Gracia).