"Hearts are Trumps," John Everett Millais, 1872.

Millais (1829-1896) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite school, & one of its most praised & successful members, getting many society commissions & earning a knighthood.

Starting in the 1850s, though, he began moving away from strict Pre-Raphaelism to a more Realist style, which caused some of his old crowd to view him as a sellout. But today it's seen as a natural evolution of his style, & his own refusal to be corralled by a particular school. Some feel his marriage to Euphemia, the former wife of art critic John Ruskin, a champion of the Pre-Raphaelites, had something to do with it; Effie had received an annulment on the grounds that her marriage had never been consummated. Millais was said to be very uneasy around Ruskin after that.

The women here are the three daughters of writer and collector Walter Armstrong, who was hoping to bump up his family's social status. The pose of the three women at cards is seen as a hint of a competition to marry. Of note is that Mary, to the right and looking out at us knowingly (with the King and Jack of hearts in her hand) married an Irish politician a few years after this was painted.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Tate Britain, London.

#Art #PreRaphaelite #JohnEverettMillais #PortraitMonday #WomenInArt

https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-MagazineOfArt-Vol6/pages/458-cupids-hunting-ground/

A sketch by Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Cupid’s Hunting Ground, shows Cupid as an older boy or young man, blindfolded, about to choose a young woman.

Uness he decides to go for the artist instead 🙂

#cupid #nudeClassic #preRaphaelite #yellow #romance #archer #naked #fobo #vintageArt #GIMP #Gimp_3 #GIMP3

Our latest post is out - poetry, pictures, and interesting details from Christina's life at home and elsewhere!

https://open.substack.com/pub/talesfromthepennybloods/p/the-poet-of-the-family?

#substack #christinarossetti #victorianliterature #preraphaelite #poetrycommunity #poetrylovers✒️

‘The poet of the family’

Christina Rossetti - Curiosities and Oddities

Tales's Substack

Morgan le Fay

Morgan le Fay transformed from a queen,
To something darker, something unseen.
In myth she was curious, virtuous, bright—
But later pens only wanted to fright.
That priestess of old, half-druid, half-divine,
Whom knights bore Arthur to in twilight’s line.
For when the king was wounded and nearly dead,
They sought her isle where magic bled.
So villain or paladin? Neither fits her bid—
Morgan would say, I simply did.

#ArthurianLegend #Poetry #MorganLeFay #Mythology #PreRaphaelite

« Britomart », 1900

by Walter Crane (British socialist artist, 1845-1915)
Illustration from Edmund Spenser’s "The Faerie Queene", c.1900
Watercolor on paper

#vintagefantasyart #fantasyart #fantasyillustration #WalterCrane #FairyTales #preraphaelite #ArtsandCrafts #ArtNouveau #FaerieQueene

So many good things in this month already! This is John Lucas Tupper's portrait medallion of William Holman Hunt -- he's quite young here. Photo and info. (as so often) from Dennis T. Lanigan https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/tupper/3.html
#sculpture #PreRaphaelite