Isabella

Millais painted Isabella at the Royal Academy in 1849, one of the founding masterpieces of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The painting illustrates Keats's poem "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil," showing the fateful dinner where Isabella's brothers discover her love for Lorenzo. Each figure was based on a specific model, many from the Brotherhood's circle, and the painting's precise detail and vivid color announced the arrival of a revolutionary new style.

The painting's meticulous detail extends to every element — the majolica plates, the food, the embroidered cloth, and the precisely observed features of each figure. The bright, clear palette, achieved by painting over a wet white ground, creates the luminous surface that became the Pre-Raphaelite signature.