John Leech
4 of 43 portraits by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt
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- Extended catalogue entry
© 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.
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.
View all known portraits for John Leech
View all known portraits for Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt