End Notes
Millais, Charles Dickens and the Holy Family
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[1] Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones”, Household Words, 15/6/1850 https://web.archive.org/web/20211128174336/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/HW15jun50.html
[2] JG Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, Volume 1 at 75-6 https://dn721503.ca.archive.org/0/items/lifelettersofsir01milliala/lifelettersofsir01milliala.pdf
[3]"The Arts. The Royal Academy." Spectator 23.1140 (5 May 1850), 426-427 https://web.archive.org/web/20100709134923/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/SP5may50.html
[4] "The Royal Academy Exhibition." Builder, 1 June 1850, 255-256
[5] "The Pictures of the Season", Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July 1850, 82
[6] Google Arts & Culture, “Christ in the House of his Parents” https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/christ-in-the-house-of-his-parents-the-carpenter-s-shop-sir-john-everett-millais/KgHTjZxC7spFMQ?hl=ent
[7] The sheep were based on two sheep’s heads that Millais obtained from a local butcher: Tate catalogue entry https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-christ-in-the-house-of-his-parents-the-carpenters-shop-n03584].
[8] Tate, op cit, [see end note 7]
[9] Zechariah 13:6: The rather oblique text is, "And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."
[10] Leonie Caldecott, “Through a Glass Darkly: Musings on Pre-Raphaelite Bodies, Humanum https://humanumreview.com/articles/through-a-glass-darkly-musings-on-pre-raphaelite-bodies
[11] For more on Jacob’s Ladder, see Philip McCouat, “Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt: the intersection of religion, art and science”, Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com https://www.artinsociety.com/elsheimerrsquos-flight-into-egypt-how-it-changed-the-boundaries-between-art-religion-and-science.html
[12] Amelia McKee, “Millais, Catholicism and the Victorian Critics”, Art for the Liturgical Year https://liturgicalyearinart.substack.com/p/millais-catholicism-and-the-victorian
[13] "The Royal Academy. May Exhibition." Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 17 (June 1850), 355-360. https://web.archive.org/web/20100709165759/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/TEMjun50.html
[14] Millais, op cit [see end note 2]
[15] Builder, op cit, [see end note 4]
[16] Punch 19 (18 May 1850), 198. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923011712/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/PUN18may50.html
[17] Blackwood’s, op cit [see end note 5]
[18] "The Royal Academy. May Exhibition." Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 17 (Jun. 1850), 355-360. https://web.archive.org/web/20120209010928/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/TB1jun50.html
[19] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]
[20] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[21] Tait’s, op ci, [see end note 18]. A bantling was a brat or illegitimate child
[22] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]
[23] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[24] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[25] Joseph's head, for example, was based on Millais's own father, but the body was based on a real carpenter. The Virgin Mary was based on his sister-in-law Mary Hodgkinson; John the Baptist was posed by a young adopted cousin, Edwin Everett; and Nöel Humphreys, the son of an artist friend, sat for the young Christ: Tate, op cit [see end note 7]
[26] See Susan P Casteras, “Pre-Raphaelite Challenges to Victorian Canons of Beauty”, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 1, 1992, at 14. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3817653
[27] Casteras, op cit [end note 26] at 13. In some ways, these attitudes echo the reaction by some to the frank depictions of holy characters in the works of Caravaggio some three centuries previously. Caravaggio commonly used street people and prostitutes as his models for holy people, emphasising that real people were involved, not just idealisations. At the time, this tendency was strongly criticised by some critics as being unacceptably vulgar
[28] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 13
[29] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 15
[30] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 15
[31] E H Gombrich, The Story of Art, Phaidon, London, 1970, at 386
[32] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[33] It’s said that the painting proved to be so controversial that Queen Victoria asked that it be removed from the exhibition, where it was creating a sensation, and brought to her so she could examine it in private
[34] See discussion in Philip McCouat, “On the Trail of the Last Supper”, Journal of Art in Society https://www.artinsociety.com/on-the-trail-of-the-last-supper.html. Interestingly, the Biblical “sinful woman” Mary Magdalene was also often depicted with red hair
[35] Definition in Oxford English Dictionary (1933 edn)
[36] Act 3, Scene 4
[37] Even today, people with red hair can attract negative descriptions such as “ranga” (derived from orangutan), “blood nut” or “carrot top”
[38] Mellinkoff, Ruth, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993 at 154. See also Paffenroth, Kim, Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2001; Shreckenberg, Heinz, The Jews in Christian Art, Continuum, New York, 1996
[39] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]; Leah Berkenwald, “What is Jewish Hair?”, Jewish Women’s Archive https://jwa.org/blog/jewish-hair
[40] It has also been argued that Dickens’ dislike of the painting was affected by his belief that the painting’s imagery was too Roman Catholic: see Jude V Nixon, “‘[M]Any Jewels Set in Dirt’: Christology, ‘Pictures from Italy’, and Pre-Raphaelite Art.” Dickens Studies Annual 41 (2010): 81–125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44371444; and McKee, op cit [see end note 12]
[41] "Exhibition of the Royal Academy" [Christ in the House of His Parents review]. Illustrated London News 14 May 1850, 336 https://web.archive.org/web/20150922015021/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/ILN14may50.html
[42] "Music and Fine Arts," Guardian 1 June 1850, 396 https://web.archive.org/web/20150922012541/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/GUA1jun50.html
[43] Yvette Alt Miller, “The Jewish Woman Who Changed Charles Dickens’ Mind about Hating Jews’, Aish, 9 August 2025 https://aish.com/the-jewish-woman-who-changed-charles-dickens-mind-about-hating-jews/; Murray Baumgarten, “The Other Woman – Eliza Davis and Charles Dickens”, Dickens Quarterly, Vol 32, No 1, March 2015
[44] Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, Charles Dickens: The Man, The Novels, The Victorian Age, Andre Deutsch, London, 2011, at 113
[45] Lucinda Hawksley, “Katey Dickens: the forgotten story behind ‘The Black Brunswicker’”, Art UK, 8 June 2016 https://artuk.org/discover/stories/katey-dickens-the-forgotten-story-behind-the-black-brunswicker
[46] George P Landow, “ ‘Your Good Influence on Me’; The Correspondence of John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt” The Victorian Web, 12 June 2007 https://victorianweb.org/painting/whh/HRLet/introduction.html
[47] Gordon H Fleming, John Everett Millais: A Biography, 1999
[48] Millais became very fond of Katey, who became a successful artist, mainly of children’s portraits
[49] Lucinda Hawksley, Charles Dickens and his Circle, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2016, at 95
[50] Lucinda Hawksley, op cit [see end note 45] https://artuk.org/discover/stories/katey-dickens-the-forgotten-story-behind-the-black-brunswicker
[51] Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, op cit [see end note 44]
© Philip McCouat, 2026. First published July 2026.
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[1] Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones”, Household Words, 15/6/1850 https://web.archive.org/web/20211128174336/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/HW15jun50.html
[2] JG Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, Volume 1 at 75-6 https://dn721503.ca.archive.org/0/items/lifelettersofsir01milliala/lifelettersofsir01milliala.pdf
[3]"The Arts. The Royal Academy." Spectator 23.1140 (5 May 1850), 426-427 https://web.archive.org/web/20100709134923/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/SP5may50.html
[4] "The Royal Academy Exhibition." Builder, 1 June 1850, 255-256
[5] "The Pictures of the Season", Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July 1850, 82
[6] Google Arts & Culture, “Christ in the House of his Parents” https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/christ-in-the-house-of-his-parents-the-carpenter-s-shop-sir-john-everett-millais/KgHTjZxC7spFMQ?hl=ent
[7] The sheep were based on two sheep’s heads that Millais obtained from a local butcher: Tate catalogue entry https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-christ-in-the-house-of-his-parents-the-carpenters-shop-n03584].
[8] Tate, op cit, [see end note 7]
[9] Zechariah 13:6: The rather oblique text is, "And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."
[10] Leonie Caldecott, “Through a Glass Darkly: Musings on Pre-Raphaelite Bodies, Humanum https://humanumreview.com/articles/through-a-glass-darkly-musings-on-pre-raphaelite-bodies
[11] For more on Jacob’s Ladder, see Philip McCouat, “Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt: the intersection of religion, art and science”, Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com https://www.artinsociety.com/elsheimerrsquos-flight-into-egypt-how-it-changed-the-boundaries-between-art-religion-and-science.html
[12] Amelia McKee, “Millais, Catholicism and the Victorian Critics”, Art for the Liturgical Year https://liturgicalyearinart.substack.com/p/millais-catholicism-and-the-victorian
[13] "The Royal Academy. May Exhibition." Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 17 (June 1850), 355-360. https://web.archive.org/web/20100709165759/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/TEMjun50.html
[14] Millais, op cit [see end note 2]
[15] Builder, op cit, [see end note 4]
[16] Punch 19 (18 May 1850), 198. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923011712/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/PUN18may50.html
[17] Blackwood’s, op cit [see end note 5]
[18] "The Royal Academy. May Exhibition." Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 17 (Jun. 1850), 355-360. https://web.archive.org/web/20120209010928/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/TB1jun50.html
[19] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]
[20] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[21] Tait’s, op ci, [see end note 18]. A bantling was a brat or illegitimate child
[22] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]
[23] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[24] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[25] Joseph's head, for example, was based on Millais's own father, but the body was based on a real carpenter. The Virgin Mary was based on his sister-in-law Mary Hodgkinson; John the Baptist was posed by a young adopted cousin, Edwin Everett; and Nöel Humphreys, the son of an artist friend, sat for the young Christ: Tate, op cit [see end note 7]
[26] See Susan P Casteras, “Pre-Raphaelite Challenges to Victorian Canons of Beauty”, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 1, 1992, at 14. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3817653
[27] Casteras, op cit [end note 26] at 13. In some ways, these attitudes echo the reaction by some to the frank depictions of holy characters in the works of Caravaggio some three centuries previously. Caravaggio commonly used street people and prostitutes as his models for holy people, emphasising that real people were involved, not just idealisations. At the time, this tendency was strongly criticised by some critics as being unacceptably vulgar
[28] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 13
[29] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 15
[30] Casteras, op cit [see end note 26] at 15
[31] E H Gombrich, The Story of Art, Phaidon, London, 1970, at 386
[32] Charles Dickens, op cit [see end note 1]
[33] It’s said that the painting proved to be so controversial that Queen Victoria asked that it be removed from the exhibition, where it was creating a sensation, and brought to her so she could examine it in private
[34] See discussion in Philip McCouat, “On the Trail of the Last Supper”, Journal of Art in Society https://www.artinsociety.com/on-the-trail-of-the-last-supper.html. Interestingly, the Biblical “sinful woman” Mary Magdalene was also often depicted with red hair
[35] Definition in Oxford English Dictionary (1933 edn)
[36] Act 3, Scene 4
[37] Even today, people with red hair can attract negative descriptions such as “ranga” (derived from orangutan), “blood nut” or “carrot top”
[38] Mellinkoff, Ruth, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993 at 154. See also Paffenroth, Kim, Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2001; Shreckenberg, Heinz, The Jews in Christian Art, Continuum, New York, 1996
[39] Builder, op cit [see end note 4]; Leah Berkenwald, “What is Jewish Hair?”, Jewish Women’s Archive https://jwa.org/blog/jewish-hair
[40] It has also been argued that Dickens’ dislike of the painting was affected by his belief that the painting’s imagery was too Roman Catholic: see Jude V Nixon, “‘[M]Any Jewels Set in Dirt’: Christology, ‘Pictures from Italy’, and Pre-Raphaelite Art.” Dickens Studies Annual 41 (2010): 81–125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44371444; and McKee, op cit [see end note 12]
[41] "Exhibition of the Royal Academy" [Christ in the House of His Parents review]. Illustrated London News 14 May 1850, 336 https://web.archive.org/web/20150922015021/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/ILN14may50.html
[42] "Music and Fine Arts," Guardian 1 June 1850, 396 https://web.archive.org/web/20150922012541/http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_Critic/GUA1jun50.html
[43] Yvette Alt Miller, “The Jewish Woman Who Changed Charles Dickens’ Mind about Hating Jews’, Aish, 9 August 2025 https://aish.com/the-jewish-woman-who-changed-charles-dickens-mind-about-hating-jews/; Murray Baumgarten, “The Other Woman – Eliza Davis and Charles Dickens”, Dickens Quarterly, Vol 32, No 1, March 2015
[44] Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, Charles Dickens: The Man, The Novels, The Victorian Age, Andre Deutsch, London, 2011, at 113
[45] Lucinda Hawksley, “Katey Dickens: the forgotten story behind ‘The Black Brunswicker’”, Art UK, 8 June 2016 https://artuk.org/discover/stories/katey-dickens-the-forgotten-story-behind-the-black-brunswicker
[46] George P Landow, “ ‘Your Good Influence on Me’; The Correspondence of John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt” The Victorian Web, 12 June 2007 https://victorianweb.org/painting/whh/HRLet/introduction.html
[47] Gordon H Fleming, John Everett Millais: A Biography, 1999
[48] Millais became very fond of Katey, who became a successful artist, mainly of children’s portraits
[49] Lucinda Hawksley, Charles Dickens and his Circle, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2016, at 95
[50] Lucinda Hawksley, op cit [see end note 45] https://artuk.org/discover/stories/katey-dickens-the-forgotten-story-behind-the-black-brunswicker
[51] Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, op cit [see end note 44]
© Philip McCouat, 2026. First published July 2026.
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