The Auctioneer

Sir John Everett Millais Bt PRA (1829-96)

circa 1849

Pen and ink on paper

6 1/2 x 31 5/16 inches, 16.5 x 10 cm.

Peter Nahum Ltd, London has most generously given its permission to use in the Victorian Web information, images, and text from its catalogues, and this generosity has led to the creation of hundreds of the site's most valuable documents on painting, drawing, and sculpture. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with Peter Nahum Ltd.

Readers should consult the website of Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries to obtain information about recent exhibitions and to order their catalogues. [GPL]

Commentary by Hilary Morgan

These sketches of an auctioneer and a gentleman were probably made from memory, although they are vividly observed. This is inferred from the difficulty of using a pen with an ink bottle in an auction room. The image of the plump, beringed auictioneer has elements of caricature and can be compared with other caricatural drawings dating from the Pre-Raphaelites' student years, such as Rossetti's images of Millais declaring that a work of art was 'slosh' and Hunt agreeing 'of course!'.

The drawing also reminds us that, during those student years, the National Gallery contained only some two hundred paintings. The auction houses played an important part in the visual education of young artists. The most important London auctioneers of works of art in the Victorian period were Christie's so perhaps this drawing is an image of a member of the firm.

Bibliography

Morgan, Hilary, and Peter Nahum. Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 14.

Surtees, V. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1825-1882 The Paintings and Drawings: A Catalogue Raisonne. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

---

Victorian
Web

Artists

J. E.
Millais

Drawings

Next

Last modified 21 December 2001