Study for the Head of the Rescuing Lover in Escape of the Heretic

Art Historical Context

This preparatory drawing by Sir John Everett Millais captures the head of a central figure in his 1856 painting *The Escape of the Heretic*. Created in 1857, the study reflects Millais’s position as a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a movement that prized intense observation, emotional expression, and historical or literary subjects drawn from medieval and Renaissance sources. The subject—an imagined rescue during the Spanish Inquisition—allowed Victorian audiences to explore themes of faith, persecution, and romantic heroism popular in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. Executed in graphite and red chalk on cream wove paper, the sheet reveals Millais’s working method. The combination of precise graphite lines with warm red-chalk modeling allowed him to refine the lover’s features, hair, and expression before committing them to the final canvas. Such studies were essential to the Pre-Raphaelite emphasis on finish and psychological depth, ensuring every element in the completed painting carried narrative weight. Now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, this intimate work offers visitors a rare glimpse into the artist’s creative process and the careful preparation behind one of his most dramatic narrative compositions.