Object Image

L'Enfant du Régiment

John Everett Millais derived his subject from Donizetti’s opera La Fille du régiment. The heroine of the opera is Marie, offspring of a secret liaison between an aristocratic Englishwoman and a French army officer. After her father’s death in battle in the Napoleonic wars, Marie is adopted by his regiment. Millais represents not a scene from the opera but rather an incident from her earlier life and one of his own invention: during fighting in a church, Marie has been wounded and lies sleeping on a knight’s tomb.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

Credit Line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund...

1854-1855
Oil on paper, laid on canvas, mounted on board
45.1 x 61.0cm
B1981.4
Digital image courtesy Yale Center for British Art; free to use under the Center's Image Terms of Use

Where you'll find this

Yale Center for British Art
Permanent collection