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Lot Essay
This portrait has been known only as having been exhibited at the Society of Portrait Painters in 1896, the year of Millais's death, and from a reference in a Central Bank of Scotland account book kept by Millais's wife Effie in the early 1860s. She lists a 'Head of Miss Maitland' under 'Oils, 1864' (see Mary Bennett's transcription of the account book in the Liverpool Bulletin, vol. 12, 1967, p. 57.)
The sitter, born in 1856, was the daughter of William Fuller Maitland of Stansted Hall, in Essex. After Trinity College, Cambridge, Fuller Maitland travelled extensively on the continent, spending several years in Italy where he studied works by previously disregarded masters. He formed an extensive and impressive collection. After his death Botticelli's Tondo; Adoration of the Kings, and Franciabigio's Portrait of a Knight of St. John were sold to the National Gallery, London.
Neither was he unappreciative of contemporary masters. He acquired Millais's Ophelia before his death in 1876, and the picture remained in the family's possession until 1892 when it was sold to Sir Henry Tate. It is now in Tate Britain.
Millais painted children often as they were to him what dreamy-eyed young women were to Rossetti and Burne-Jones, a vehicle for his ideas about the expression of truth and beauty. He began to explore the subject in 1856 when L'Enfant du Regiment (now in the Yale Center for British Art) was exhibited at the Royal Academy. My First Sermon and My Second Sermon (both Guildhall Art Gallery, London) followed at the Royal Academy in 1863 and 1864. 1864, the year this portrait was painted, was also the year Millais executed his engaging Portrait of John Wycliffe Taylor at the Age of Five (sold, Christie's, London, 6 June 1997, lot 38), thought by his parents in a letter to the artist to be 'the sweetest picture of a child even you have painted'.
Letters in the vendor's possession indicate regular correspondence between artist and patron and give insight into Millais's practice. On 25 October 1864 he wrote `Dear Mr Fuller Maitland. I am returned for good to town & the first thing I wish to finish is your Daughter but first I would like an hours sitting any day you could spare her; the sooner the better. I have just come from Paris and have been impending a headache every day in the Louvre', The following year he wrote in surprisingly brisk terms on 6 March `Dear Mr Fuller Maitland, I have no intention of hanging yr Daughters portrait this year as being a hanger I don't wish to exceed 6 pictures. Were to I to submit the portrait there are 10 other who wld feel themselves aggrieved, all the pictures I am sending are larger subject pictures'.
We are grateful to Professor Malcolm Warner for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
The sitter, born in 1856, was the daughter of William Fuller Maitland of Stansted Hall, in Essex. After Trinity College, Cambridge, Fuller Maitland travelled extensively on the continent, spending several years in Italy where he studied works by previously disregarded masters. He formed an extensive and impressive collection. After his death Botticelli's Tondo; Adoration of the Kings, and Franciabigio's Portrait of a Knight of St. John were sold to the National Gallery, London.
Neither was he unappreciative of contemporary masters. He acquired Millais's Ophelia before his death in 1876, and the picture remained in the family's possession until 1892 when it was sold to Sir Henry Tate. It is now in Tate Britain.
Millais painted children often as they were to him what dreamy-eyed young women were to Rossetti and Burne-Jones, a vehicle for his ideas about the expression of truth and beauty. He began to explore the subject in 1856 when L'Enfant du Regiment (now in the Yale Center for British Art) was exhibited at the Royal Academy. My First Sermon and My Second Sermon (both Guildhall Art Gallery, London) followed at the Royal Academy in 1863 and 1864. 1864, the year this portrait was painted, was also the year Millais executed his engaging Portrait of John Wycliffe Taylor at the Age of Five (sold, Christie's, London, 6 June 1997, lot 38), thought by his parents in a letter to the artist to be 'the sweetest picture of a child even you have painted'.
Letters in the vendor's possession indicate regular correspondence between artist and patron and give insight into Millais's practice. On 25 October 1864 he wrote `Dear Mr Fuller Maitland. I am returned for good to town & the first thing I wish to finish is your Daughter but first I would like an hours sitting any day you could spare her; the sooner the better. I have just come from Paris and have been impending a headache every day in the Louvre', The following year he wrote in surprisingly brisk terms on 6 March `Dear Mr Fuller Maitland, I have no intention of hanging yr Daughters portrait this year as being a hanger I don't wish to exceed 6 pictures. Were to I to submit the portrait there are 10 other who wld feel themselves aggrieved, all the pictures I am sending are larger subject pictures'.
We are grateful to Professor Malcolm Warner for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.