Sir John Everett Millais ‘Il Penseroso’ at Bonhams

Il Penseroso by Sir John Everett Millais (British, 1829-1896) leads Bonhams 38-lot sale of The Guy Bailey Collection of Victorian Art. The work, completed in 1887, has an estimate of £100,000-150,000. The sale will run online from 24 February 24 – March 5, with an exhibition at Bonhams New Bond Street, London.

By the 1880s, John Everett Millais was at the height of his fame and known for using striking models for his works. The sixteen year-old Grace Evelyn Palliser was one such model. She was the daughter of a couple Millais had brought together.

Her father was the Irish soldier, inventor, and politician Sir William Palliser, who developed the armour-piercing ‘Palliser shot’ and other technical innovations for guns. Her mother, Hannah Perham, had herself been an artist’s model, and it was after posing for Millais’ painting Charlie is My Darling, that she caught the eye Sir William Palliser. He begged Millais for an introduction, and the pair married in 1868. Their daughter Grace, later the model for Millias’ Il Penseroso, was born in 1870. Sir William died in 1882, leaving his wife and four children not especially well provided for. An invocation of melancholy, perhaps Millais’ decision to ‘cast’ Grace in Il Penseroso as a pensive figure dressed mostly in black had something to do with her family circumstances.

Records of her later life are scant. She never married, and most likely continued to live with her mother  until her mother’s death in 1923. At the time of her own death in 1940, aged sixty-nine, she was a resident of Anglet, near Biarritz, in German-occupied France.

Speaking of his collection Guy Bailey commented: “If new owners find only half as much satisfaction from any item as I have been lucky enough as to receive, they will be very fortunate. I do not regret any of my purchases, although I occasionally regret what I did not buy, and I have thoroughly enjoyed not only admiring the beauty of the works but also researching the history of both the subjects and artists.

“My love of this period of art rather sneaked up upon me. I was educated at Beaumont College Windsor, an elegant Palladian mansion which housed numerous 18th and 19th century pictures, and during my school years I became familiar with a wide variety of literary, mythological and religious subjects. In 1972, an art dealer friend took me to an auction, I went in with great enthusiasm and not much knowledge and was enchanted.  From then on I caught the collecting bug and attending sales became a great joy. I enjoyed coming home from a busy day at the office and getting whisked away in the beauty and stories the paintings and sculptures told.

“These pictures have given my family and I much happiness and to my delight researching them has led me to diverse areas of literature and myth. It is fitting to say goodbye to my old friends through Bonhams, an auction house which has given me so much joy over the years. I know these works will continue to give great pleasure to their new owners.”

Charles O’Brien, Director of 19th Century Paintings at Bonhams, commented: “This impressive collection of Victorian Art (which includes works by William Mulready, Sophie Anderson, Emily Mary Osborn and Simeon Solomon) is a testament to the passion and keen eye of Guy Bailey. This stunning late portrait, which leads the collection, shows that Millais’ ability to create complex beauty never wavered.”

Other highlights of the sale include:

• Sir William Blake Richmond, RA (British, 1842-1921), Perseus and Andromeda. Estimate: £30,000 – 50,000.
• Sophie Anderson (French, 1823-1903), The Studio. Estimate: £30,000 – 50,000.
• George Frederic Watts, OM, RA (British, 1817-1904), The creation of Eve. Estimate: £20,000 – 30,000.
• Edward Hodges Baily (British, 1788-1867), Eve listening to the voice of Adam. Estimate: £20,000 – 30,000.