St. Agnes of Intercession (The Reluctant Sitter). Etching on paper. 5 5/8 x 9 inches (14.3 x 22.7 cm). Collection of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, inventory no. 1906P625.2. Image courtesy of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, identified as being in the Public Domain (Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0).
The title of this etching alludes to the story of St. Agnes, a thirteen-year-old Roman virgin living in the fourth century A.D, who refused to marry eligible suitors of high rank stating she would have no spouse but Jesus Christ. She suffered martyrdom for her Christian beliefs and became the patron saint of those seeking purity and chastity. D.G. Rossetti's interest in her, like that of John Keats, was focused on the legend associated with St. Agnes that a virgin who prayed to the saint on the eve of her feast day on the 21 of January would be granted a vision of her future spouse. Paul Goldman has summarized Rossetti's story intended for The Germ about a contemporary artist who discovers that he is, in reality, a reincarnation of a fifteenth century painter Bucciuolo Angiolieri:
Millais's scene contains an episode involving Bucciuolo and his lover Blanzifiore dall' Ambra which the artist reads about in a catalogue. She has taken fatally ill in Lucca and summons Bucciuolo to rush to her deathbed from Florence. "When, on his arrival, she witnessed his anguish at thus losing her forever, Blanzifiore declared at once that she would rise from her bed, and that Bucciuolo should paint her portrait before she died; for so, she said, there should still remain something to him whereby to have her in memory. In this will she persisted against all remonstrance occasioned by the fears of her friends; and for two days, though in a dying state, she sat with wonderful energy to her lover clad in her most sumptuous attire, and arrayed with all her jewels: her two sisters remaining constantly at her side, to sustain her, and supply restoratives. On the third day, while Bucciuolo was still at work, she died without moving." (69)
William Michael Rossetti, in his introduction to the 1901 reprint of The Germ, mentions how a critic for the newspaper the Guardian complained that John Everett Millais had contributed nothing to this Pre-Raphaelite publication. Rossetti pointed out: "This however was not Millais's fault, for he made an etching for a prose story by my brother (named 'An Autopsychology,' or now 'St. Agnes of Intercession'; and this etching, along with the story, had been expected to appear in a No. 5 of The Germ which never came out" (13-14). On May 23, 1850 it had been decided that no further issues of The Germ would be published.
A pencil sketch for the print. [Click on this for more information.]
The print exists in only a few proofs, with impressions being in the collections of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (inventory no. 1906P625.2), the Victoria and Albert Museum (inventory no. E.5150/1910), the British Museum (museum no. 1878,0511.1228) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (inventory no. B1986.6). A compositional sketch in pencil can be seen in John Guille Millais' biography of his father, and the original is in the collection of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (inventory no. 1906P625.1).
Paul Goldman has commented on Millais as a print maker:
Millais excelled as an etcher and his first, the unpublished St. Agnes of Intercession, number 1 (1850), has claims to be his greatest. It is redolent of the first flush of Pre-Raphaelite intensity…. Intended for the fifth number of The Germ but never published. It was to have accompanied a story by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which he originally intended to illustrate himself, entitled "St. Agnes of Intercession." In the event, he found himself dissatisfied with his own effort and, on seeing a proof of it on 28 March 1850, deliberately damaged the surface of the plate ensuring that no further impressions could be taken from it. It seems that Millais began work on his plate shortly after this date. [36-37]
Rossetti's dissatisfaction with his own attempt at mastering the etching process is well documented in W. M. Rossetti's The P.R.B. Journal. On 26 March 1850, William reported that "Gabriel and Brown continued at work on their etchings" (66). On 28 March, William wrote: "Brown had his proof taken, which he sent in the evening, together with the plate, to Tupper. Gabriel's also was taken, but disgusted him; whereat he tore up the impression, and scratched the plate over" (67). In fact, W. M. Rossetti had first asked Millais on 21 February 1850 whether he would be able to do an etching for the March issue of The Germ but he had been too busy at that time, because he was working on his painting Christ in the House of His Parents in preparation for the upcoming Royal Academy exhibition.
D. G. Rossetti had begun his prose story of "St. Agnes of Intercession" towards 1848 but never finished it although it was intended that it be completed for publication in The Germ. When Millais agreed to undertake an etching of this subject he wrote to Rossetti
stating he was about to commence his task, and enquiring whether the costume of the figures ought to be modern. The reply must have been in the affirmative. Millais then made his etching…. The design represents what would no doubt have been the final incident in the tale – the hero painting the portrait of his affianced bride, who dies while sitting to him: this being a recurrence of the events which had happened to the same painter and the same lady in the fifteenth century – for the story is essentially one of metempsychosis. [W. M. Rossetti, D.G.R. as Designer and Writer, 131-32).
Millais' etching is a characteristic example of Pre-Raphaelite draughtsmanship from this period in the early 1850s. The artist along with the dying young woman with a sad look of resignation to her fate on her face, as well as her two sisters supporting her, are all are dressed as planned in contemporary dress and not that of the fifteenth century. Rodney Engen has described this as "a striking etching of a young woman in a long dress, her flowing tresses and the trellis of flowers expertly delineated within an arched format" (13). Engen goes on to point out that this was a remarkable first attempt at etching:
The subject of a dying girl seated with two female companions while her lover paints her portrait is a poignant scene. In many ways it heralded Millais's formula for thwarted romance that would dominate so many of his illustrations and paintings…. Millais created a pitiably expressive etching, the pain upon the sitter's face, countered by the intense concentration of her artist lover as he stands before the easel, brush poised to record all that he sees. Here, too, was the budding Millais style of fine, outlined, elongated figures, carefully restrained shading of drapery and the mere suggestion of the rooms interior. The care Millais lavished upon the drawing and biting of this single image was symptomatic of his subsequent etchings but this one was ill-fated and was never published. [30]
Bibliography
Engen, Rodney. Pre-Raphaelite Prints. London: Lund Humphries, 1995,13 & 30.
Goldman, Paul. Beyond Decoration The illustrations of John Everett Millais. London: The British Library, 2005, 36-37 & 68-69.
Millais, John Guille. The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais Vol. I. Toronto: George N. Morang & Co., 1900. Internet Archive, from a copy in Trent University Library. Web. 16 April 2025.
Rossetti, William Michael. Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer. London: Cassell & Company Limited, 1889.
_____. Introduction. The Germ: Thoughts Towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art. A Facsimile Reprint of the Literary Organ of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Published in 1850. London: Elliott Stock, 1901. 5-30.
_____. The P.R. B. Journal. William Michael Rossetti's Diary of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1849-1853. Edited by William E. Fredeman. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1975, 66-67.
St. Agnes of Intercession (The Reluctant Sitter). Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Web. 16 April 2025.
Suriano, Gregory R. The Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2000. 138 and 162.
Created 16 April 2025