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Lot Essay
The drawing was presumably made about the time of Millais' marriage on 3 July 1855. His wife Effie (Euphemia) was a year his senior and had previously been married to John Ruskin. She and Millais had fallen in love when they were holidaying in Scotland with Ruskin in the summer of 1853, and she had had her marriage to the critic annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. It was one of the causes célèbres of the Victorian era.
Effie frequently appeared in Millais' paintings and drawings around the time of their romance and marriage (see Millais' Portraits, exh. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1999, cat. nos. 15-21 and 25, all illustrated). There is also a more formal portrait of 1873 (Perth Museum and Art Gallery). But by far the most famous likeness of Effie in Millais' work occurs in The Order of Release (Tate Britain), a picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853 in which the wife of a Jacobite rebel is seen procuring his release from prison, possibly at the price of her virtue. The subject is not really relevant to Effie's own situation; after all, it is not the wife but the husband who is being released. Nonetheless, the title does seem fraught with significance in the light of Effie's forthcoming separation from Ruskin, and it was actually adopted for a partisan account of the affair published by her grandson Sir William James in 1948.
Effie frequently appeared in Millais' paintings and drawings around the time of their romance and marriage (see Millais' Portraits, exh. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1999, cat. nos. 15-21 and 25, all illustrated). There is also a more formal portrait of 1873 (Perth Museum and Art Gallery). But by far the most famous likeness of Effie in Millais' work occurs in The Order of Release (Tate Britain), a picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853 in which the wife of a Jacobite rebel is seen procuring his release from prison, possibly at the price of her virtue. The subject is not really relevant to Effie's own situation; after all, it is not the wife but the husband who is being released. Nonetheless, the title does seem fraught with significance in the light of Effie's forthcoming separation from Ruskin, and it was actually adopted for a partisan account of the affair published by her grandson Sir William James in 1948.