News from Home

Description Millais was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood in 1848. However, he subsequently abandoned the bright colors and the minute attention to detail associated with the Brotherhood's style of painting for a broader approach. Marrying a Scottish woman, formerly the wife of the critic John Ruskin in 1855, he developed an interest in Scottish subjects. In this scene from the Crimean War (1854-1856), he shows a soldier of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment, the famed Black Watch, reading a letter from home. When this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857 (no. 50), Ruskin ridiculed the soldier's immaculate appearance under the circumstances.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
9/25/1942	Treatment	coated; other
1/22/1964	Treatment	loss compensation; other
6/01/1971	Treatment	cleaned; other
5/20/1991	Treatment	cleaned; coated; loss compensation; other

Exhibitions

• The Pre-Raphaelites. Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis. 1964.
• A Magnificent Age: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte. 2002-2004.
• 19th Century Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin. 2010-2011.

Provenance Arthur J. Lewis, London [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Charles W. Deschamps [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1880, by purchase [see letter from G. H. Broughton to Deschamps, April 24, 1880]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Label] On reverse of panel: No 3/News from Home: John Evrett Millias; [Label] In ink on paper: Charles Roberson & Co./Artists' Colormen, Manufactueers of Water and Oil Colours/Materials for Drawing and Painting/ 51 Long Acre, London

Credit Acquired by William T. Walters, 1880