The Highland Lassie

The Highland Lassie, painted in 1854, belongs to the period when Millais was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and was beginning his extended relationship with Scotland, which would eventually include long stays at sporting estates in Perthshire and the production of many Scottish landscape and figure subjects. A Highland girl or 'lassie' was a subject type with romantic associations drawn from Robert Burns and Walter Scott, whose celebration of Scottish rural character had given Scottish subjects a particular appeal for British artists and collectors throughout the Romantic period. The work on cardboard rather than canvas suggests it may have been executed rapidly, possibly as a study or smaller-scale independent work. The Delaware Art Museum, with its strong Pre-Raphaelite collection built around the Samuel Bancroft bequest, holds this as part of what is arguably the finest Pre-Raphaelite collection outside Britain.

The cardboard support gives the painted surface a slightly different character from canvas, with paint sitting on rather than sinking into the ground. Millais uses his characteristic Pre-Raphaelite precision in the treatment of the face and clothing, building up detail with careful, small brushstrokes over a white ground. The result is a luminous, clear surface quality distinctive to this period of his work.