Caller Herrin'

Caller Herrin' of 1886 takes its title from a traditional Scottish street cry used by fishwives selling fresh herring in Edinburgh and other coastal towns, made famous in a popular song by Lady Carolina Nairne. The title immediately situates the subject in a tradition of picturesque depictions of working women, a genre that Millais visited occasionally but which sits at an angle to his more typical portraits and fancy pictures. By the mid-1880s Millais was the dominant figure of the British art establishment, and his return to social genre subjects carried the prestige of his name. The image of the fishwife — hardy, purposeful, associated with the elemental world of sea and labour — offered Victorian viewers an aestheticised encounter with working life, filtered through the idealising conventions of salon painting. Millais's Scottish connection through his wife Effie and his regular shooting holidays in Scotland gave him direct familiarity with such figures.

Oil on canvas, the work shows Millais painting with vigorous confidence. The outdoor light is captured with a directness that distinguishes it from the more interior warmth of his fancy pictures. Drapery and the textured surfaces of the fisherwoman's clothes are rendered with summary but convincing strokes, and the figure is silhouetted against a relatively light sky.