John Everett Millais was raised in Jersey, Southampton, and Dinan until his family relocated to London in 1838 so that he may be trained in art. At the age of eleven, in 1840 he entered the Royal Academy Schools as a child prodigy making him the youngest student to ever enroll. His first exhibit was in 1846 with Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru which won him a RA gold medal for historical painting the following year.
Millais first met William Holman Hunt at the Royal Academy Schools and the two shared similar beliefs regarding the art world and it's current conditions. In September of 1848, Millais along with Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, sculptor Thomas Woolner, Frederick George Stephens, James Collinson and Michael Rossetti formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His first painting done in the Pre-Raphaelite style and bearing the PBR monogram to the bear the was Isabella in 1849. The painting was well received by critics but in 1850 his main work exhibited, Christ in the Carpenters Shop earned hostile reviews, with Charles Dickens among the critics. In 1852 he showed A Huguenot which became one of his most well known paintings and would be the first made into an engraving.
In 1853 which was elected ARA which served to effectively signal the end of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Critic John Ruskin, an open supporter of the PRB, befriended Millais and that same year Millais joined Ruskin and his wife Effie on a holiday in Scotland. John Everett Millais soon learned that the Ruskin's marriage was a sham and in one of the most publicized scandals of the day, Millais fell in love with Effie. The marriage was annulled the following year on the grounds of lack of consummation and in July, 1855 John Everett Millais and Effie were married. The couple settled in Scotland for the next six years where Millais mainly produced illustrations for magazines and books.
In 1863 he was elected RA. John Everett Millais became known for his portraits and studies of children, the subjects often modeled by his own four sons and daughters. From the 1870's he was a respected portraitist, painting many prominent figures of the Victorian era and became one of the most poplar painters of the day.
