Information

The distant background of this painting shows the village of Winchelsea in Sussex, painted in the autumn of 1854. The two girls in the foreground and the middle ground were added later in Perth in 1855. The models were Matilda Proudfoot as the blind girl and Isabella Nichol as her younger sister. Millais had first used his wife Effie but then replaced her with Matilda. The scene deals with the contemporary social problem of vagrancy, focusing on the predicament of children and the disabled. Tate has a pencil drawing of the younger girl in a standing position.

  • Presented by the Rt Hon William Kendrick, 1892.
  • © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Makers

Association Artist Organisation
Artist John Everett Millais -

Inscriptions

Type Position(s) Method Date(s) Notes
JM
Monogram - - 1856
 

Exhibitions

Catalogue No. Venue Date(s)
The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts: 88th Exhibition
586 Royal Academy, London 1856-05-05 - 1856-07-26
 
Thirty-Third Exhibition
124 Liverpool Academy of Arts 1857 - 1857
 
Thirty-Seventh Exhibition
15 Liverpool Academy of Arts 1861-09--9 - 1862-01-11
 
The Permanent Collection of Paintings, and a Special Loan Collection of Modern Pictures
189 City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 1891-10-02 - 1892
 
Exhibition of British Art c. 1000-1860
568 Royal Academy of Arts, London 1934-01-06 - 1934-03-10
 
Twee Eeuwen Engelsche Kunst
10 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1936 - 1936
 
Chefs-d'oeuvre de la peinture anglaise: XVIIIe et XIX siecles
92 Palais du Louvre, Paris 1938-03-04 - 1938-06
 
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
61 City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham 1947-06-07 - 1947-07-27
 
The First Hundred Years of the Royal Academy 1769-1868
281 Royal Academy of Arts, London 1951-12-08 - 1952-03-10
 
Makers of British Painting 1800-1950
57 Museum of Modern Art, New York, and US tour 1956-10-02 - 1957-05-12
 
British Art 1700-1960
82 Pushkin Museum, Moscow 1960-02 - 1960
82 Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 1960 - 1960-08
 
Primitives to Picasso: An Exhibition from Municipal and University Collections in Great Britain
195 Royal Academy of Arts, London 1962-01-06 - 1962-03-07
 
Peintures et Aquarelles Anglaises, 1700-1900, du Musée de Birmingham
- Musée des Beaux Arts, Lyon 1966-10-23 - 1966-11-20
 
Millais PRB/ PRA
51 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1967-01-14 - 1967-03-05
51 Royal Academy, London 1967-03-15 - 1967-04-30
 
La peinture romantique anglaise et les preraphalites
184 Petit Palais, Paris 1972-01-21 - 1972-04-16
 
The Pre-Raphaelites
69 Tate Gallery, London 1984-03-07 - 1984-05-28
 
Viktorianische Malerei von Turner bis Whistler/ Pintura Victoriana: de Turner a Whistler
repr. col. 34 Neue Pinakothek, Munich 1993-02-26 - 1993
repr. col. 34 Museo del Prado, Madrid 1993 - 1993-07-31
 
Visions of Love and Life: Pre-Raphaelite Art from the Birmingham Collection, England
38 Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington 1995-03-09 - 1995-05-07
38 Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio 1995-05-27 - 1995-07-16
38 Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington 1995-08-11 - 1995-10-15
38 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas 1995-11-04 - 1996-01-02
38 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia 1996-01-23 - 1996-04-10
38 Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 1996-05-25 - 1996-05-25
 
The Victorians: British Painting in the Reign of Queen Victoria 1837-1901
11 National Gallery of Art, Washington 1997-02-16 - 1997-05-11
 
Art Treasures of England: The Regional Collections
132 Royal Academy, London 1998-01-22 - 1998-04-13
 
The Dignity of Humble People: Jean-Francois Millet and Naturalism in Europe
- Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo 2003-04-10 - 2003-07-13
 
Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature
105 Tate Britain, London 2004-02-14 - 2004
105 Altes Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2004 - 2004
105 Fundacio La Caxia, Madrid 2004 - 2005-01-09
 
Millais
62 Tate Britain, London and tour 2007-09-26 - 2008-01-13
 

Literature

Author(s) Date(s) Publisher Pages
The Life and Letters of John Everett Millais
John Guille Millais 1899; 1900 Methuen, London. vol. 1, pp. 237, 240-43, 307, 310; vol. 2, pp. 394, 451, 469, 495.
 
Magazine of Fine Arts
April 1906 - p. 407.
 
Pre-Raphaelite Painters
J Gere, R Ironside 1948 Phaidon, London p. 40 repr. pls. 53-54.
 
English Art 1800-1870
T S R Boase 1959 Clarendon Press, Oxford pp. 284, 293.
 
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
F M Hueffer 1907 Duckworth, London pp.138, 165; repr. p. 111.
 
Die Zeugenossiche Engliische Malonei
Robert de la Sizeranne 1899 - p. 142.
 
Millais
K Roberts 1967 Knowledge Publications, London pp. 5-6.
 
'Victorian Painting and Patronage in Birmingham'
April 1968 Apollo. vol. 87 pp. 246-47.
 
Antiques
November 1968 - p. 752.
 
The Pre-Raphaelites
Timothy Hilton 1970 Thames and Hudson, London pp. 78 -151.
 
Die Praffaeliten
Peter Betthausen 1989 Kunst und Gesellschaft, Berlin p. 40.
 
'L'Art du XIXe Siecle'
1890 Editions Citadelle p. 531.
 
Le Symbolisme
Michael Gibson 1994 Cologne & Bonn pp. 66-68; illus. p. 74.

Provenance

Bought Ernest Gambart, 1856; John Miller of Liverpool by 1857; his sale, Christie's, 21 May 1858 (171); bought Robertson; David Currie by 1861; William Graham; his sale, Christie's, 2 April 1886 (l89), bought Agnew's; Albert Wood by 1891; bought William Kenrich MP, and present by him to Birmingham, 1892.

Associated people

Name Type
Effie Gray Artist's model
Matilda Proudfoot Artist's model
Isabella Nichol Artist's model

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