Frederic George Stephens

1 portrait

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Frederic George Stephens

by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt
pencil, 1853
8 1/2 in. x 6 in. (216 mm x 152 mm)
Given by the sitter's son, Holman ('Holly') Fred Stephens, 1929
Primary Collection
NPG 2363

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt (1829-1896), Painter and President of the Royal Academy; ex-officio Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Artist or producer associated with 43 portraits, Sitter in 76 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Funnell, Peter; Warner, Malcolm, Millais: Portraits, 1999 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 19 February to 6 June 1999), pp. 44; 80 Read entry

    The artist and critic F. G. Stephens was a student at the Royal Academy Schools and founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His attempts to paint an historical picture for exhibition in the late 1840s and early 1850s ended either in abandonment or rejection, and his only exhibited works were the portraits of his parents shown at the Academy in 1852 and 1854. He sat as a model to Millais for a figure in Isabella and for Ferdinand in Ferdinand Lured by Ariel (1849-50; Makins Collection). From 1850 he was increasingly drawn to the criticism of art rather than its practice. His first published pieces appeared in The Germ and The Critic in that year, and from 1861 to 1901 he was principal art critic for the Athenaeum.

    The portrait was drawn to be sent to another P.R.B., the sculptor Thomas Woolner, who had sailed to Australia in July 1852 to dig for gold. At a party on 7 January 1853, Woolner's friends in London decided that there should be some 'act of communication' between them, and D. G. Rossetti decreed that 'on the 12th April ... at 12 o'clock in the day, we shall each of us, wheresoever we be, make a sketch of some kind (mutual portraits preferable) ... and immediately exchange them by post.'1

    A Pre-Raphaelite drawing session was duly held, on the prescribed date, at Millais's studio in Gower Street. Stephens recalled: 'Millais fell to me to be drawn, and to him I fell as his subject. Unhappily for me, I was so ill at that time that it was with the greatest difficulty I could drag myself to Gower Street; more than that, it was but the day before the entire ruin of my family, then long impending and long struggled against in vain, was consummated ... My portrait, which by the way is a good deal out of drawing, attests painfully enough the state of health and sore trouble in which I then was. This meeting was one of the latest "functions" of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in its original state.'2

    The fact that Stephens and Millais were drawing each other at the same time explains the forward tilt of Stephens's head and his upward look. In the event, he gave up his drawing, and the task of portraying Millais for Woolner was taken over by Holman Hunt.3

    1 Amy Woolner, Thomas Woolner, R.A., 1917, p 48.

    2 Millais, Life, vol.I, pp 81-2.

    3 Ibid.

  • Marsh, Jan, Character Sketches: The Pre-Raphaelites, 1998
  • Marsh, Jan, The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2013, p. 49 Read entry

    This portrait was sent to Woolner and later given by him to Stephens's wife. In 1898 the sitter recalled the occasion: 'Unhappily for me, I was so ill at the time that it was with the greatest difficulty that I could drag myself to Gower Street.' Holman Stephens, the sitter's son, presented it to the National Portrait Gallery in 1929.

  • Marsh, Jan, Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2005, p. 46
  • Rogers, Malcolm, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, 1993 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 August to 23 October 1994), p. 118
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 587

Events of 1853back to top

Current affairs

Britain and America sign a treaty establishing an International Copyright agreement. Dickens, whose Bleak House is also published this year, was a particularly outspoken critic of these laws, as his works were freely published in America without any protection over copyright or royalties. He had lobbied the American Congress over the issue during his North American reading tour of 1842.

Art and science

David Livingstone makes a six month journey from the Zambezi river to the west coast of Africa.
Harriet Martineau translates The Positive Philosophy of August Comte. A scientific approach to understanding the natural world and human and social relations, positivism has an important influence on the development of the social sciences.
Holman Hunt exhibits his The Light of the World

International

Diplomatic row over Napoleon's call to the Turkish empire to restore Roman Catholic rights in the Holy Land. Russia asserts her role of protecting the rights of all Christians in the Ottoman empire; French and British fleets are dispatched to the Dardanelles. The Turkish sultan, declaring that he will look after the rights of Christians, heightens tension, and the Crimean war begins with Turkey declaring war on Russia.

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