Sir John Everett Millais, Bart., P.R.A., H.R.I., H.R.C.A. 1829-1896

Sotheby's, London, 17 March, 1971, lot 99;

Sotheby's Belgravia, London, 11 November 1975, no.83;

Christie's, London, 25 May 1979, lot 82;

Private collection

Royal Academy of Arts, 1896, no.151

Royal Academy Pictures, 1896, p.17

M.H. Spielmann, Millais and his Work, London, 1898, pp.65, 154, 178; cat. no.338

John Guille Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, two volumes, London, 1899, II, p.486; detail illustrated p.453

Michael Levy, Sir Thomas Lawrence 1769-1830, exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1980, p.76

The Hon. John Nevile Manners was born on 6 January 1892, the eldest son of the 3rd Baron Manners and his wife Constance, née Hamilyn-Fane. The Manners family lived at Avon Tyrrell, near Christchurch, Hampshire, and in London at Mansfield House, New Cavendish Street. They were descended from Thomas Manners-Sutton, Solicitor-General of England in 1802-05 and a grand-son of the 3rd Duke of Rutland, who was created Baron Manners of Foston in 1807. John Nevile Manners was educated at Eton, and was killed in action in 1914. His younger brother, Francis Henry Manners MC succeeded as 4th Baron Manners in 1927.

The portrait of John Nevile Manners shows a young aristocrat dressed in the manner of the early nineteenth century. The painting invites comparison with Sir Thomas Lawrence's Master Lambton (Lord Lambton collection), of 1825, and of which it is in some sense a deliberate reworking - not least in the choice of a red velvet suit for the child and white lace collar and stockings. The pose of the figure is likewise similar to that in the painting by Lawrence, but a reference to boyish pastimes of the late Victorian period is introduced by Millais in the racket and shuttlecock that the boy holds.

Millias was one of the most distinguished British Portrait artists of the late Victorian period, painting images of great men and of the age, for example Thomas Carlyle, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, painted in 1877, 1879 and 1881 respectively (all National Portrait Gallery). He was also in great demand as a painter of society figures, and was particularly adept at capturing the beauty of his female sitters, even on occasions anticipating the sheer elegance of John Singer Sargent. Although prolific as a portraitist, and as fashionable and in demand as ever at the end of his life, he succeeded in inventing new ways of treating his subjects and was continually original in terms of compositions and the positioning of the figure.

Of all Millais' portraits, perhaps the most delightful and nature-seeming are those of children. He and his wife Effie had many children of their own, and a number of portraits of these boys and girls survive. Millais seems to have had a capacity to put other people's children at ease; or at least one has the impression that the youthful sitters in such works as the portrait of Charles Liddell, known as The Brown Boy (sold in these rooms, June 2000), of 1879, found the process of being painted by him less than an ordeal. A particular freshness of handling and affection for childish condition and his feeling for the irrecoverable condition of innocence that he admired in his own children and those of his friends, imbues his child portraiture right to the end of his career.