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Glen Birnam
painting

Millais, Sir John Everett P.R.A., H.R.I., HRCA
Europe, United Kingdom, Scotland, Perthshire, Birnam Hall
1891

1908.15
First floor: Pre-Raphaelites

oil paint
145.2 x 101.1 cm

Glen Birnam 1891
Sir John Everett Millais 1829-1896
Oil on canvas

This is one of several large Scottish landscapes
which Millais began painting from about 1870.
He regularly rented houses around Birnam
for family holidays, fishing and shooting.

His bleak winter scenes combine fresh natural detailing
with fashionable Highland grandeur.
Here, an enigmatic figure lends narrative appeal.

With his Pre-Raphaelite days long behind him,
Millais was among the most respected and well paid
of later nineteenth-century artists.
He enjoyed an annual income of about £30,000
and was made President of the Royal Academy
a few months before his death in 1896.