Ward (L.) John Everett Millais {1881} NGV [DR]

Ward, Leslie (1851-1922; English)
John Everett Millais (1870s?)
Pencil, c.29.7 x 22.8 cm
Purchased, 1881
National Gallery of Victoria (p.168.11-1)

According to NGV 1894 and 1905, this drawing was made for The Graphic.

Millais (1829-96), one of the foundation members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, is said to have brought Ward’s caricatures to the attention of Vanity Fair in the early 1870s.

After 1905, the NGV acquired a number of Millais’s works, the most significant of which is the 1855 painting The Rescue (Felton Bequest, 1924).

Refs.

AR 1881, p.54; NGV 1894, p.53 (II.Stawell Gallery, no.56); NGV 1905, p.118 (V.Buvelot Gallery, 2^nd bay, no.5) [£9/9] 

For the suggestion that Millais recommended Ward to Vanity Fair, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/635779/Sir-Leslie-Ward. For Millais’ The Rescue, see http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/4185/