In this 1885 mirror image, after the 1881 painting, she is seated on a wooden stool, wearing a simple peasant bodice dress and light cap; she is bare foot and holds a peacock feather in her left hand and clasps a broom in her right. She appears to be located in a large stone fire place with logs behind her and an ornate brass bound bellows hanging on the chimney wall to her right. This charming, if sentimental, depiction of a classic fairy tale image captures the beauty of adolescence. It is most handsomely presented appropriately matted and framed.
Beatrice Sothern Fanny Buckstone (1869 -1956) posed for three of Millais’ works. She was the granddaughter of actor/comedian John Baldwin Buckstone. Millais’ son wrote about her in The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais:
About this time, to the great delight of Millais, a new and most charming model was discovered in the person of Miss Beatrice Buckstone, grand-daughter of the famous comedian J.B. Buckstone, and with the consent of her parents (for she was then but a child of 12 or 13) she sat for the three pictures, “Cinderella”, “Caller Herrin,” and “Sweetest Eyes Were Ever Seen”. It was at St. James’ Theatre, in the winter of 1880-81, that this happy discovery was made. One of my sisters, who happened to be at the theatre one evening when the child was playing in “Good Fortune” as a member of Mr. and Mrs. Kendal’s company, was so struck with her beauty that she prevailed on my father to go and see her. He, too, was equally captivated, and at once wrote to her mother, asking leave for her to sit to him. This being granted, little Beatrice presently appeared in the studio, when we all agreed that never in our lives had we seen a more lovely child. Her face was simply perfect, both in form and colour, and nothing could be more charming than the contrast between her bright golden hair and those big, blue-grey Irish eyes that peeped at you from under the shade of the longest black lashes that ever adorned the human face. The pictures for which she sat in no way exaggerated her beauty; they were but portraits of her own sweet self. It seemed a pity that she should ever grow older; but she did and in course of time became the wife of Mr. Walter Warren, who is connected with the stage. (The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais vol. II)
Sir John Everett Millais, Ist. Baronet, PRA., 8 June 1829 -13 August 1896 was a famous Pre-Raphalite painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, illustrator and etcher of sentimental and genre subjects. He was elected president of the Royal Academy, and was a member of the etching Club.
A child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street (now number 7). Millais became the most famous exponent of the style. By the mid-1850's Millais was moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite style to develop a new form of realism in his art. His later works were enormously successful, making Millais one of the wealthiest artists of his day. Millais's personal life has also played a significant role in his reputation. His wife Effie was formerly married to the critic John Ruskin, who had supported Millais's early work. The annulment of the unconsummated marriage and her wedding to Millais have sometimes been linked to his change of style, but she became a powerful promoter of his work and they worked in concert to secure commissions and expand their social and intellectual circles.
