Elgiva seized by order of Archbishop Odo

This 1845 Elgiva Seized by Order of Archbishop Odo is a remarkably ambitious early work painted when Millais was sixteen. The Anglo-Saxon historical subject demonstrates his precocious engagement with the kind of dramatic narrative painting that the Royal Academy valued most highly. Millais, a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, combined extraordinary technical precision — building up his surfaces over a wet white ground to achieve jewel-like color — with intense literary

The dramatic historical scene shows the teenage Millais already commanding complex multi-figure compositions with assured drawing and dramatic lighting that was remarkable for an artist so young.