Information
This is one of several small compositions with a single female figure that Millais painted in 1854. There is much debate about the sitter of this painting. Some believe it to be a portrait of Effie Gray, Ruskin's wife at the time who later married Millais. Others believe it to be Annie Miller, who modelled for Millais. The painting was first known under the title of 'The Stile'. Although Millais achieves a harmony between the depictions of young womanhood and the beauty of nature, Victorian convention frowned upon young women out alone and the sitter's uneasy pose and her situation may have appeared fraught with danger. The walls act as a boundary, a control often symbolising virginity. The woman sits on a stile, a point where she could breach the wall entering the woods with her lover. Apart from these implied ideals of the time there seems to be no narrative attached to the work.
- Presented by Mrs Nettlefold, 1909.
- © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Makers
Association |
Artist |
Organisation |
Artist |
John Everett Millais |
- |
Inscriptions
Type |
Position(s) |
Method |
Date(s) |
Notes |
JEM 1854 |
Monogram |
bottom right |
Painted |
- |
|
|
Exhibitions
Catalogue No. |
Venue |
Date(s) |
International Exhibition |
204 |
Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow |
1901-05-02 - 1901-11-09 |
|
Loan Exhibition of Works by Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelites |
235 |
Manchester City Art Gallery |
1911-09-14 - 1911-11 |
|
Works by the English Pre-Raphaelite Painters Lent by the Art Gallery Committee of the Birmingham Corporation |
15 |
Tate Gallery, London |
1911-12 - 1912-03 |
|
The Pre-Raphalite Brotherhood |
60 |
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
1947-06-07 - 1947-07-27 |
|
Primitives to Picasso: An Exhibition from Municipal and University Collections in Great Britain |
193 |
Royal Academy of Arts, London |
1962-01-06 - 1962-03-07 |
|
The Pre-Raphaelites |
59 |
Tate Gallery, London |
1984-03-07 - 1984-05-28 |
|
Millais |
59 |
Tate Britain, London |
2007-10-03 - 2008-01-13 |
59 |
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
2008-02-15 - 2008-05-18 |
|
Ten Decades - a Review of British Taste 1851-1951 |
17 |
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London |
1951-08-10 - 1951-09-27 |
|
Millais, PRB, PRA |
43 |
Royal Academy of Arts, London |
1967-01-14 - 1967-03-05 |
43 |
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
1967-03-15 - 1967-04-30 |
|
Some Pre-Raphaelite Paintings and Drawings |
- |
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth |
1955-07 - 1955-10 |
- |
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea |
1955 - 1955 |
|
An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Victorian Artists in England |
- |
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
1965-03 - 1965-04 |
|
Visions of Love and Life: Pre-Raphaelite Art from the Birmingham Collection, England. |
31 |
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and American tour |
1995 - 1996 |
|
Theodore Fontane and the Visual Arts |
56 |
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
1998-09-01 - 1998-11-29 |
|
The Pre-Raphaelites |
68 |
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
2009-02-26 - 2009-05-24 |
|
Literature
Author(s) |
Date(s) |
Publisher |
Pages |
The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais |
John Guille Millais |
1899; 1900 |
Methuen, London |
vol. 1, p. 223; vol. 2, p. 468. |
|
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham: Catalogue of Paintings |
|
1960 |
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham. |
p. 100. |
|
Victorian Painting and Patronage in Birmingham |
R Ormond |
1968-04 |
Apollo Magazine |
vol. 87, p. 246. |
|
Footnotes to the Millais Exhibition |
Mary Bennett |
1967 |
Liverpool Bulletin |
vol. 12, p. 45. |
|
Millais |
|
- |
Masters |
vol. 67. |
|
Millais and his Works |
M H Spielmann |
1898 |
W Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London |
pp. 151, 163-64. |
|
Visions of Love and Life: Pre-Raphaelite Art from the Birmingham Collection, England. |
Stephen Wildman |
1995 |
Arts Services International, Alexandria, Virginia |
p. 138. |
|
The Pre-Raphaelites |
|
- |
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
cat.68, p.183; fig.130 |
Provenance
Jospeh Arden; his sale, Christie's, 24 April 1879 (29), bought Tooth; Edward Nettlefold, whose wife presented it to Birmingham, 1909. |
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