Cleveland Museum of Art

Steps in a Garden

William Henry Millais

Date

1860

Medium

watercolor and gouache with scratch-away technique to create highlights on sturdy-weight wove paper mounted to same by artist with color tests in margins of mount

Culture

England, 19th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

William Henry Millais was closely associated with the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He sketched extensively from nature in the early 1850s. Here, Millais painted a sequestered landscape of rough-hewn steps ascending a shady slope. A smattering of light pierces a dense canopy of trees, allowing little to flourish except for the foxgloves that adorn the foreground. Ivy growing on the hillside, a decaying stump, and moss-covered steps suggest the passage of time. William Henry Millais's brother John Everett was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and encouraged the older artist to pursue landscape as a subject.

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