Information
This painting is based on a design drawn by Millais for engraving by the Dalziel Brothers to illustrate The Parables of Our Lord, published in 1863. The book featured twenty woodcuts from designs by Millais. In the scene depicted, a field has been planted with good seed but an enemy comes at night to sow tares, or evil seeds, among the wheat. Millais' composition and light effects convey the terror of this story. The enemy is a figure of horrifying ugliness, stooping to his evil work and surrounded by darkness. Streaks of light break the gloom of the sky and cast sinister gleams on the figure from behind, illuminating his bare feet and the arm that is sowing the tares. The single-figure composition is unconventional for Biblical history painting. The painting was offered to the Royal Academy by Millais as his Diploma work, but was rejected. There is a smaller oil version at Buscot Park and a watercolour in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
- Presented by the Public Picture Gallery Fund, 1925.
- © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Makers
Association |
Artist |
Organisation |
Artist |
John Everett Millais |
- |
Inscriptions
Type |
Position(s) |
Method |
Date(s) |
Notes |
monogram |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Red paint. |
|
Exhibitions
Catalogue No. |
Venue |
Date(s) |
- |
528 |
Royal Academy of Arts, London. |
1865 - 1865 |
|
Exposition Universelle |
80A |
Champs de Mars, Paris. |
1867-04-01 - 1867-10-31 |
|
Exhibition of the Works of Sir John E. Millais, Bart, R.A. |
3 |
Grosvenor Gallery, London. |
1886 - 1886 |
|
Centennial International Exhibition |
186 |
Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne. |
1888-08-01 - 1889-02-01 |
|
Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition |
- |
City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol. |
1893 - 1893 |
|
Loan Collection of Pictures |
151 |
Guildhall Art Gallery, London. |
1892-03-28 - 1892-06-30 |
|
Works by the Late Sir John Everett Millais |
14 |
Royal Academy of Arts, London. |
1898 - 1898 |
|
Millais |
91 |
Tate Britain, London. |
2007-09-26 - 2008-01-13 |
91 |
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
2008-02-15 - 2008-05-18 |
91 |
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka |
2008-06-07 - 2008-08-17 |
91 |
Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo |
2008-08-30 - 2008-10-26 |
|
Literature
Author(s) |
Date(s) |
Publisher |
Pages |
Pictures, Drawings and Sculpture Forming the Collection of Sir John Pender, G. C. M. G., M. P. |
Sir John Pender |
1894 |
London. |
cat. no. 77 / pp. 45-46. |
|
Catalogue of the Very Valuable Collection of High-Class Modern Pictures and Water-Colour Drawings Formed by the Well-Known Amateur, the Late Sir John Pender |
|
1897 |
Christie, Manson & Woods, London. |
cat. no. 55. |
|
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham: Catalogue of Paintings |
|
1960 |
City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham |
p. 101. |
|
The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais |
John Guille Millais |
1899; 1900 |
Methuen, London. |
vol. 1, pp. 360, 384, 395; vol. 2, pp. 33, 472, 487. |
|
Millais |
Alison Smith, Heather Birchall, Jason Rosenfeld |
2007 |
Tate Publishing, London |
cat. no. 91 / p. 152. |
Provenance
Sir John Pender, sold Christie's, 29 May 1897 (550); E. M. Denny, sold Christie's, 8 May 1925 (146); purchased by Public Picture Gallery Fund for £105 for Birmingham, 1925. |
Related work & resources
Discuss this work
|