Sir John Everett Millais Bt. PRA, Old Age, 1847-8.
Pen and black ink on cream wove paper. 80 mm x 180 mm. © Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photographer: John Hammond.
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Sir John Everett Millais Bt. PRA (1829 - 1896)
RA Collection: Art
These drawings relate to Millais's first major commission, a set of six painted lunettes to decorate the hall of John Atkinson's house in Leeds (now No. 3 Hyde Terrace). Millais worked on this project during the summer of 1847 and possibly 1848. The subjects chosen for four of the lunettes represent the 'Ages of Man' - Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age - while the remaining two represented Music and Art.
Millais worked on this commission prior to the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. However, these pen and ink drawings indicate that he was already experimenting with the angular, stylised forms and compositions which characterise his 'Pre-Raphaelite' drawings.
The painted lunettes are now in Leeds City Art Gallery and there are further preparatory drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.
80 mm x 180 mm