Sir John Everett Millais

A YEOMAN OF THE GUARD.
Bell's Miniature Series of Painters
BY A. L. BALDRY
LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1908
First Published, December, 1902. Reprinted, December, 1907.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SIR JOHN MILLAIS
Although John Everett Millais was born, on June 8, 1829, at Portland Place, Southampton, his father was an inhabitant of Jersey, and a member of a family which had been settled in that island from a date anterior to the Norman conquest. The first five years of the child's life were spent in Jersey, but in 1835 he was taken by his parents to Dinan, in Brittany, where he began, by his sketches of the scenery of the place and the types of the people, to give the first convincing proofs of the remarkable artistic capacity that was in him. These early efforts were so surprising, and attracted so much attention outside his family circle, that when he was not more than nine years old he was brought to London for an expert opinion on his chances in the profession for which he seemed predestined. The President of the Royal Academy, Sir Martin Archer Shee, was consulted, and his encouraging declaration, that Nature had provided for the boy's success, decided the future of the young artist, who was at once allowed to begin serious study.
In 1838 he entered the drawing-school in Bloomsbury which was carried on by Henry Sass, and regarded as the best available place for the training of budding genius. In the same year he took the silver medal of the Society of Arts, for a drawing from the antique, and caused quite a sensation when he appeared, at the distribution of the prizes, to receive his award from the Duke of Sussex, who was presiding. The surprise of the spectators is said to have been unbounded when Mr. Millais came forward, a small child in a pinafore, to answer to his name, and even the officials at first found it hard to believe that he could be really the winner of the medal.