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John Leech

4 of 43 portraits by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt

John Leech, by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, 1854 -NPG 899 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Victorian Portraits Catalogue

John Leech

by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt
1854
15 3/4 in. x 10 in. (400 mm x 254 mm)
NPG 899

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated (lower right): JEM/[in monogram] 1854.
Inscribed above monogram in pencil: J E Millais

This portraitback to top

According to W. P. Frith, this portrait was drawn while Leech and Millais were staying at the Peacock Inn, Baslow, near Chatsworth; Millais was writing letters from there in July 1854. The two men were intimate friends, and spent several hunting and fishing holidays together. Edwin Lawrence was another friend of Leech (four letters from his son, Basil Lawrence, about the portrait are in the NPG archives). A pencil sketch of Leech by Millais is reproduced J. G. Millais, I, 262.

Referenceback to top

Frith 1891
W. P. Frith, John Leech, his Life, and Work (1891), pp 279-80.

James 1948
Admiral Sir W. James, The Order of Release (1948), pp 240-1.

Millais 1899
J. G. Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A. (1899), II, 487.

Physical descriptionback to top

Fresh complexion, blue eyes, black hair and side-whiskers. Gold(?) stock-pin, white shirt with green dots, and brown coat sketchily indicated.

Provenanceback to top

Edwin Lawrence; purchased at Christie's, 6 May 1892 (lot 299).

Reproductionsback to top

W. P. Frith, John Leech, his Life, and Work (1891), frontispiece; J. G. Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A. (1899), I, 263.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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