The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 23, 2024

Steps in a Garden

Steps in a Garden

1860
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

William Henry Millais's brother John Everett was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and encouraged the older artist to pursue landscape as a subject.

Description

William Henry Millais was closely associated with the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He sketched extensively from nature in the early 1850s. Here, Millais painted a sequestered landscape of rough-hewn steps ascending a shady slope. A smattering of light pierces a dense canopy of trees, allowing little to flourish except for the foxgloves that adorn the foreground. Ivy growing on the hillside, a decaying stump, and moss-covered steps suggest the passage of time.
  • ?-?
    D. Parkinson
    1977
    (sale, Sotheby's, London, December 6, 1977, no. 36)
    after 1977-?
    (Maas Gallery, London)
    ?-2013
    Helen and Albert Borowitz, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    2013-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: pp. 112-3, 147, no. 37; Reproduced: p. 113
  • Imagining the Garden. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 24, 2015-March 6, 2016).
    British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
  • {{cite web|title=Steps in a Garden|url=false|author=William Henry Millais|year=1860|access-date=23 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2013.240