Lot Essay
This design is a version of one of six lunettes (representing Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age, Music and Poetry) which Millais painted for the house of John Atkinson at Little Woodhouse, Leeds, in 1847-8. It was his first major commission. According to M.H. Spielmann (Millais and his Works, 1898, p.154), Atkinson had a new wing added to the house in 1847, including a hall with a tessellated pavement designed by Owen Jones and a series of lunette-shaped spaces left free for decoration. Millais was invited to fill these on the recommendation of C.W. Cope, whose life-class at the Royal Academy he attended. There is, however, some dispute as to exactly which lunettes Millais filled and whether he carried out the work in 1847 or 1848 (see Mary Bennett's catalogue of the Millais exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Royal Academy, London, 1967, nos.10-15).
The original paintings, which were on canvas attached to the wall, are now in the Leeds Art Gallery. Preparatory drawings exist in the collection of the Royal Academy and elsewhere (1967 exh., nos. 210-226), and a version of Youth in pen and ink, watercolour and gold leaf is recorded (1967 exh, no.227).
The present picture is dated c.1848 by Dr Malcolm Warner, who identifies it as a version painted after the lunette, on a much smaller scale (the originals measure 15 x 51in.), no doubt for someone who admired the composition. To make it into a more conventional picture, Millais has exchanged the lunette shape for a rectangle, although the design still betrays the original lunette format; he has also used a full range of colours whereas the original paintings are in grisaille on blue backgrounds. He frequently repeated his designs in this way, adopting different sizes and techniques.
Whether the lunettes were painted in the summer of 1847 (as Spielmann states) or that of 1848 (as Holman Hunt suggests in his autobiography), they certainly pre-date Millais's famous painting of Isabella (RA 1849; Liverpool), in which he made his first attempt to apply the principles of the newly-founded Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Mary Bennett has suggested that the 'formal symmetry' of the designs owes much to Ford Madox Brown's Wycliffe (Bradford), which was in progress in 1847-8 (and which has an arched top), and that the centre group in Youth may reflect a similar group of lovers in Moritz Retzsch's Outline to Schiller's Song of the Bell, published in London in 1834 (1967 exh. cat., under nos. 210-3, 226). Certainly this type of German engraving inspired not only the youthful Millais but the PRB in general.
We are grateful to Dr Warner for his help in preparing this entry.
The original paintings, which were on canvas attached to the wall, are now in the Leeds Art Gallery. Preparatory drawings exist in the collection of the Royal Academy and elsewhere (1967 exh., nos. 210-226), and a version of Youth in pen and ink, watercolour and gold leaf is recorded (1967 exh, no.227).
The present picture is dated c.1848 by Dr Malcolm Warner, who identifies it as a version painted after the lunette, on a much smaller scale (the originals measure 15 x 51in.), no doubt for someone who admired the composition. To make it into a more conventional picture, Millais has exchanged the lunette shape for a rectangle, although the design still betrays the original lunette format; he has also used a full range of colours whereas the original paintings are in grisaille on blue backgrounds. He frequently repeated his designs in this way, adopting different sizes and techniques.
Whether the lunettes were painted in the summer of 1847 (as Spielmann states) or that of 1848 (as Holman Hunt suggests in his autobiography), they certainly pre-date Millais's famous painting of Isabella (RA 1849; Liverpool), in which he made his first attempt to apply the principles of the newly-founded Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Mary Bennett has suggested that the 'formal symmetry' of the designs owes much to Ford Madox Brown's Wycliffe (Bradford), which was in progress in 1847-8 (and which has an arched top), and that the centre group in Youth may reflect a similar group of lovers in Moritz Retzsch's Outline to Schiller's Song of the Bell, published in London in 1834 (1967 exh. cat., under nos. 210-3, 226). Certainly this type of German engraving inspired not only the youthful Millais but the PRB in general.
We are grateful to Dr Warner for his help in preparing this entry.