John Everett Millais
1856
Oil on canvas
The Putnam Dana McMillan Fund
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This is the portrait of a loving middle-class family in England in the mid-19th century. However, scholars do not agree on the meaning of
this painting. According to the usual interpretation, the father, apparently a wounded officer, lies on a couch with a dog curled up
at his feet. The newspaper he holds in his extended left hand dated March 31, 1856, which announces the end of the Crimean War, from
which he has just returned. His wife, who is seated in front of him on the couch, gazes out at us; she encircles his shoulders with
her right arm, while he holds her left hand in his own right hand. On her lap are four toy animals. A little girl leans on her lap
and gazes up at her parents, possibly in conversation with her father. Another little girl, stands next to a box of toy animals, looks
straight out at us, holding a toy dove in her uplifted left hand. |