Artists, Muses And Myths

Discover the true stories behind the women who inspired the Pre-Raphaelite artistic movement.

- Clare Walters

The 19th-century British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was fascinated by women. In countless works, languid beauties are portrayed as angels, temptresses, damsels in distress… but what of the women themselves? A major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, focuses on their often untold stories – how they interacted with the artists, and their roles as muses, models, and artists in their own right. These are the stories of two…

Effie Gray

Effie was banned from any event at which Queen Victoria was present

Effie Gray married the artist Sir John Everett Millais in 1855, but it was a far from auspicious union. In fact, it placed Effie at the center of one of the most scandalous affairs of the Victorian era.

Born in Perth, Scotland, in 1828, the beautiful and vivacious Euphemia Chalmers Gray was betrothed to the wealthy art critic John Ruskin when she was 19. But, right from the start, the marriage was a disaster.

On their wedding night, Ruskin was physically repulsed by his new wife (it’s thought that, bizarrely, he didn’t realize that women, like men, had pubic hair).