ABSTRACT
By the end of the 1820s, when Millais was born in the South of England, Raphael had been dead for more than 300 years and the English artist J. M. W. Turner had been a Royal Academician in London for eighteen years, having entered the Academy as a student in 1789, at the age of fourteen. Millais was to become a founder-member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which challenged the artistic credibility of Raphael and his school. Most of Bessell's tuition was concerned with the copying of engravings. For this reason, perhaps, the child was quick to grasp, even at this early stage, some formal techniques. Millais' parents showed their son's sketchbooks to the then President of the Royal Academy, Sir Martin Archer-Shee. Although sceptical about the potential of such a young pupil, he was impressed by the quality of achievement and accepted him into the Academy Schools. Millais entered as its youngest ever student at eleven years.
