Portrait of Nina Lehmann

Portrait of Nina Lehmann, painted in 1869, depicts a member of a prominent musical family. The Lehmanns were one of the most culturally active families in Victorian London, with connections to literature, music, and the arts; Nina Lehmann was known in Millais's social circle and her portrait represents the overlapping worlds of artistic and musical culture in which the painter moved. Millais's access to prominent women in artistic households gave him a class of sitter somewhat different from his aristocratic and political commissions — educated, cultural, and personally known to the artist rather than formally presented. Such portraits had a different quality of intimacy, and his knowledge of the sitter's character could inflect the pictorial approach in ways not possible with formal institutional commissions.

The portrait of a woman known personally to the artist typically shows a greater psychological directness than society commissions. Millais models the face with careful attention to individual character rather than generic female beauty, and the handling throughout has the assurance of a painter working with a cooperative, familiar subject. The colour and light are warm and domestic, suggesting the informal setting of the sitting.