Lily in formal dress and powdered wig
Date: Prior to 1906
Dimensions: Height: 64.1 cm ( 25.25 in.), Width: 45 cm (17.75 in.)
Medium: Painting – oil on canvas
Owner/Location: Private Collection, UK, see photo of Millet with the painting under description tab
Description
Painting completed before 18 March 1906. Original French style rococo frame
A mainly illegible ink inscription on the frame, of which there is a pencil transcript on a slip of lining paper: Mrs F D Millet by F Millet 62 23d St NY City On another strip of lining paper there is a fragment of a pencil inscription: 6 E 23rd S…
This painting of Lily in a formal ball gown and a powered wig could have been inspired by one of the many “costume” parties the Millet’s held at their Broadway, England, home. Upon the death of Millet in 1912, Lily donated many of his collection of over 2,000 costumes to the London Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, and to Yale University. Of the three donations, sadly all of the Yale costumes are missing, but the other two institutions still have several of the costumes originally donated by Lily. We are fortunate to have a photograph of Frank at the easel with this painting. This photograph taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals is unfortunately undated. It is held in the Harvard Schlesinger Library archives where Frank earned his BA and MA degrees.
Exhibitions / Provenance
Exhibitions:
1906, Royal Academy, London, Summer Exhibition, 1906, no.725
1999, Guild of Boston Artists, The Easel Paintings of Francis Davis Millet, 1999
2010, “A Celebration of the Work of John Singer Sargent and the Broadway Colony,” Broadway Arts Festival, 2010, p. 26 (with the incorrect canvas size)
Provenance:
Given or bequeathed by the sitter to her daughter Katherine ‘Kate’, Mrs Frank W Adlard; by descent to her grandson William Adlard, from whom the painting was purchased September 2017 for a private UK collection.
Research / Publications
Research:
Publications:
Peter Engstrom, pp. 278-9 (an account somewhat confused with another, life-size, portrait of Mrs Millet that remains in the family’s collection.)
On 18 March 1906 Millet wrote to his friend Jim Hunt: ‘The chief thing I have been painting recently has been a little portrait of Mrs. Millet which I have finished and at last sent away to England’ (information from Peter Engstrom). A photograph in the Rogers/Dakin collection show Millet posed with the unfinished painting on an easel, before the table, portrait and cabinet in the background were added.