Thomas Carlyle (Millais)
Thomas Carlyle is an unfinished portrait of the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher of the same name painted by English Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais in 1877. History Composition, reception and provenance The earliest mention of the portrait comes from Carlyle's friend William Allingham, who recorded in his Diary on 11 April 1877: "Millais is to paint him." The first two sittings occurred on 26 and 28 May of that year. On 29 May, Carlyle wrote to his brother that "Millais seems to be in a state of almost frenzy about finishing with the extremest perfection his surprising and difficult task; evidently a worthy man." James Anthony Froude, who commissioned it, documented its progress:In the second sitting I observed what seemed a miracle. The passionate vehement face of middle life had long disappeared. Something of the Annandale peasant had stolen back over the proud air of conscious intellectual power. The scorn, the fierceness was gone, and tenderness and mild sorrow had passed into its place. And yet under Millais's hands the old Carlyle stood again upon the canvas as I had not seen him for thirty years. The inner secret of the features had been evidently caught. There was a