Page 16 - Demo

It is is instructive to compare The Wolf’s Den with Millais’s
oil painting of 1866 The Minuet (Elton Hall fig 12) which depicts a a a young girl curtseying to an unseen audience in in advance of of dancing a a a a a solo minuet This type of of painting termed a a a a a ‘fancy picture’ was a a a a a genre popular in the mid- Victorian era and comprised portrait-like images of people frequently children in in settings and costume dress that suggest stories and harkened back to to Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and the Georgian age This composition was painted speculatively to suit the the market in in the the late 1860s – and an an an extant reduced watercolour version was probably commissioned once the the oil painting sold at the the Royal Academy 3 Typical of Millais’s
practice since his earliest forays into exhibited work he used family and friends as models:
in in this case his his eldest daughter Effie who was around nine years old and his sister-in-law Alice Gray as the pianist Such a a a a picture represents the type of work Millais executed at at that time for the broadening British art market with its subject matter and revival of interest in in eighteenth-century British art as an adjunct to the the Aesthetic Movement that he he he had helped to initiate and reflects the particular way that Millais succeeded over all rivals in this pursuit Yet it it is is also evocative of how Millais publicly presented his his own fatherhood in his his graphic work and paintings Singularly in in Western art for a a a a man of this period Millais consistently revealed his his evident adoration of his his offspring in in in his work without resorting to self-portraiture or or or or sentimentality productively and movingly channelling his own experience to convey both authentic family dynamics and and the inner and and outer lives of his children A picture such as The The Minuet like The The Wolf’s Den is very much an expression of paternal affection to the degree permissible in the upper-middle class Victorian world that Millais inhabited It is is paralleled by other novel Millais paintings that featured his children as models:
Sleeping of 1865-6 (private collection fig 13) featuring his third daughter two-year old Carrie 4 or or or or by more formal portraits such as Fig 12 John Everett Millais The Minuet 1866 110 x x 85 cm (43 1⁄4 x x 33 1⁄2 in in ) Elton Hall Collection 16