Object Image

Millais is best known as one of the artists who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. As a result of what have been called his "concessions to the sweetness of Victorian taste," he was made as associate of the Royal Academy in 1853. By the time he painted Portia, there was hardly a trace of the Pre-Raphaelite style in his work. Instead, he worked in an academic-realist manner and concentrated on the kinds of saccharine subjects that are now synonymous with Victorian painting.

This picture was long incorrectly identified as a portrait of the actress Ellen Terry (1847–1928) in one of her most famous roles, Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In fact, it shows actress Kate D...

1886
Oil on canvas
125.1 x 83.8cm
06.1328
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019

Where you'll find this

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection