Sir John Everett Millais

Sir John Everett Millais , 1829-96, English painter. A prodigy, he began studying at the Royal Academy at the age of 11. In 1848, together with William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he initiated the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His early work shows a painstaking rendering of minute detail and great clarity. His Christ in the Carpenter's Shop (1850; Tate Gall., London) was attacked because of its realism, but his reputation was soon established. He was created a baronet in 1885, and in 1896 he became president of the Royal Academy. John Ruskin was a close friend and champion of his work until 1855 when Millais married Mrs. Ruskin, after the nullification of her marriage. His work is well represented in many British galleries. His Portia is in the Metropolitan Museum.

Bibliography: See biographies by J. G. Millais (1899), M. H. Spielmann (1899), A. L. Baldry (1902), and A. Fisk (1923).

Millais, Sir John Everett (1829–96) English painter and illustrator, founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His Pre-Raphaelite works, such as Christ in the House of his Parents (1850), show the Brotherhood's liking for righteous subjects. His later, more sentimental style, included Bubbles (1886), which Pears Soap Company used as an advertisement.

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Millais, John Everett (1829–96). Painter and book illustrator. A scion of an old Norman family, settled in Jersey since the Conquest, Millais was a prodigy. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1840 and first exhibited there at 16. In 1848, with Holman Hunt and D. G. Rossetti, he founded the Pre‐Raphaelite Brotherhood, of which he was the most technically brilliant. After moving away from the Pre‐Raphaelite style, he became a fashionable painter of portraits and costume history.