This portrait of John Ruskin was begun whilst on holiday in Brig o’Turk, in the Trossachs, Scotland, in 1853. The artist, John Everett Millais (1829–96) began painting in July, with Ruskin’s old Oxford friend, Sir Henry Acland, holding the canvas. This was not the first time that Millais had painted outdoors, but it was an experience fraught with difficulties – it rained frequently, and the party were plagued by midges. Millais worked very slowly, but most of the background was completed by the end of October. The figure of Ruskin was then painted from life in Millais’s studio in London in the following year, although Millais returned to Brig o’Turk in June 1854 for about ten days to complete the landscape. 

It was John Ruskin’s father who commissioned this celebrated portrait of his son. Yet Millais had completed the picture with increasing reluctance, having fallen in love with Ruskin’s wife, Effie, while they were in Scotland. The affair eventually led to the dissolution of Ruskin’s marriage in April 1854, and Millais married Effie in July 1855. 

As the portrait probably provoked difficult memories, Ruskin decided to give it to Sir Henry Acland in 1871. 

The painting confirms Millais as the most advanced of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in September 1848 in Millais’ London studio. Although they had no clear manifesto, the members were all devoted to ‘truth to nature’ which, for the five or so years of the Brotherhood’s existence, required a meticulously detailed style of painting.

Text from Ashmolean Museum website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Sir John Everett Millais (1829 – 1896)
Date: 1853-4

Image Details
Date: 28 March 2024
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of an Ashmolean Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.