In 1854, at a time when divorce was considered taboo, Effie Gray went to court to annul her marriage to art critic John Ruskin. Gray cited the non-consummation of their wedding vows as justification ...
Henry Wallis, “Chatterton” (c. 1855–56), oil on canvas, 62.2 x 93.3 cm (24 1/2 x 36 3/4 in), Tate Gallery, London (all images courtesy the National Gallery of Art) In its first iteration in London, ...
Winifred Sandys, "White Mayde of Avenel" (after 1902), watercolor on vellum, 8 × 6 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935 (all images courtesy Delaware Art Museum) ...
Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais’ painting The Blind Girl (1854–56) shows two girls sitting in a bright green meadow with a double rainbow in the background. While the younger girl stares ...
Truth & Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters is an escape. In the mausoleum-like lower galleries at the Legion of Honor, there are no windows to remind you of the outside world. There’s ...
The top-selling image at the museum bookstore of London’s Tate Britain is of a young woman floating on her back in a quiet river. Heavy-lidded eyes stare emptily upwards, lips are parted in confusion, ...
This piece received third place in the nonfiction category of the 2025 Wallace Prize. When I was nineteen it was my simple pleasure to walk every morning from class on York Street to my small room ...
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE TRAGEDY — William Gaunt—Harcourt, Brace ($3). When Britain trembled over one of its periodic French invasion scares in 1859, the home guards were somewhat puzzled by the enlistment ...
The musical theater composer stopped in Wilmington during the “Phantom of the Opera” revival tour to talk about Victorian-era paintings. Andrew Lloyd Webber and curator Sophie Lynford stand in front ...
The Pre-Raphaelites—that dreamy, incestuous, awkward group of Victorian artists, writers, and aesthetes—are back. Whether you’re already familiar with them or haven’t yet had the pleasure of an ...