John Millais was born into an affluent middle class family in Southampton, England. He became the youngest pupil ever at the Royal Academy Schools when he arrived there at the age of eleven and he was the youngest to complete the course five years later. Technically he was extremely competent and was the star pupil, but he was criticized for lacking a certain breadth of imagination and vision, which is ironic given his future as a Pre-Raphaelite.

John Millais was a member of the original group of Pre-Raphaelites; he and the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti were among the youngest members since they were barely out of their teens. Although he was only twenty-three, he had to leave the Brotherhood to make more money to support a rapidly in...