Mariana

Mariana (1851) is a small mahogany panel painted by John Everett Millais during his Pre-Raphaelite period. The scene comes from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure: Mariana, abandoned by her fiancé after her dowry is lost, lives in seclusion in a moated house. Millais places her in a Gothic interior, rising from her embroidery to stretch her back, wearing a dark blue velvet gown and gazing toward a garden where the leaves turn from green to autumn brown. Each object carries meaning: the stained glass depicting the Annunciation, the small altar with cups and an incense burner, the finished embroidery roll suggesting how much time has passed. The mouse on the floor comes directly from Tennyson's poem, which inspired the picture and whose lines were printed with it at its first exhibition. The Pre-Raphaelites prized this kind of narrative detail, and here the viewer must combine image and poem to complete the story. Millais also departs from the text: his Mariana is not a helpless woman but a figure in a vivid, lived-in room.

Painter

John Everett Millais

Date

1851

Medium

mahogany wood, oil paint

Dimensions

50 × 60 cm

Museum

Tate, London

Movement

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Depicts

Galanthus nivalis, bouquet, autumn, stained glass, table, credenza, embroidery, vase

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