'Nell Gwynne' (Effie Gray James (née Millais))

1 portrait

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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'Nell Gwynne' (Effie Gray James (née Millais))

by Rupert Potter
albumen print, 7 June 1882
8 1/4 in. x 6 3/8 in. (211 mm x 163 mm) overall
Given by Jack Edward Ladeveze, 1993
Photographs Collection
NPG x131241

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Rupert Potter (1832-1914), Barrister and photographer; father of Beatrix Potter. Artist or producer associated with 29 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Seated on a saddle in her father's studio, Effie Millais poses as Nell Gwynne, the actress and mistress to King Charles II. Her horse was to be added later in the joint painting by Millais and Sir Edwin Landseer. The two artists were close friends and Millais completed the painting in 1882, upon Landseer's request, after his death in 1873, along with three others.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Perry, Gill (introduction) Roach, Joseph (appreciation) and West, Shearer (appreciation), The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 2011 to 8 January 2012), p. 74

Placesback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1882back to top

Current affairs

The Ashes Test cricket series is born. The series gets its name from a satirical obituary published in the English newspaper The Sporting Times, stating that English cricket had died and its cremated body was being taken back to Australia, after England, with batsmen W. G. Grace and Charles Studd, lost the first home match to Australia at the Oval.
The Married Women's Property Act is passed, securing equal property rights between married couples.

Art and science

Eadweard Muybridge, British photographer, exhibits his images of animal and human motion, captured with his 'zoopraxiscope', a motion-picture machine recreating movement by displaying individual photographs in rapid succession, at the Royal Academy and Royal Institution. His studies and inventions contributed to the development of motion pictures, with E.J. Marey and the Lumiere brothers acknowledging his impact.

International

The Zioinist movement begins, with the first wave of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, at this time part of the Ottoman empire. The Jewish people were in Diaspora, spread across the world, and Palestine, the place of Jewish origin but now also occupied by Muslims and Christians, seemed a logical place for a settlement.

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Susan Boyall

04 March 2019, 21:08

This lady seems to be the model for Landseer painting, but finished by Millias. There is a copy of this picture in Cannon Hall Museum near Barnsley West Yorkshire. It is large window sized but made out of thousands of coloured beads. This used to be in Elmfield House, Bramley Leeds. We think this was commissioned. We lived across the road from Elmfield House and saw the picture every day. When Elmfield house was demolished the picture was donated to Cannon Hall. There seems to be a few pictures of this ie, the lady facing right and one facing left.