Study for the Head of the Rescuing Lover in Escape of the Heretic
Medium
Graphite and red chalk, on cream wove paper (discolored from ivory) laid down on ivory
Dimensions
25.3 × 19.1 cm (10 × 7 9/16 in.)
Classification
graphite
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
72368
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. Execu...