John Everett Millais drew this portrait of the sculptor Alexander Munro on 12 April 1853, when members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle met at Millais’ studio in Gower Street, London to draw portraits of each other to send to Thomas Woolner (1825-92), the sculptor and one of the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who had emigrated to Australia.
The occasion was prompted by Rossetti who had written in a letter to Woolner “Last night at my party, it was agreed that all your intimates should meet at a certain day and hour, the equivalent of which was to be found by you Australians…for some act of communication the nature of which was left to me to decide. I therefore fix that on the 12th of April…at 12 o’clock in the day, we shall each of us, wheresoever we be, make a sketch of some kind (mutual portraits preferable) – or for any who do not draw, some verses or a letter – and immediately exchange them by post.”
Those present at the gathering were Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, F.G. Stephens and Millais. Alexander Munro happened to call and according to Arthur Hughes “Millais, having finished his Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood subject, got Munro to sit, and drew him and afterwards accompanied him to the door with drawing in his hand, to which Munro was making some critical objection that Millais did not agree with. There happened to be passing at that time a couple of rough bricklayers fresh from their work- short pipes and all. Millais suddenly reached out from the doorstep and seized one, to his great surprise, and there and then constituted them judges to decide upon the merits of the likeness, while Munro , rather disconcerted, had to stand in the street with his hat off for identification.”
Unlike Millais’ other drawing of F.G. Stephens from that day, or Holman Hunt’s drawings of Rossetti and Millais, this drawing is not inscribed with a dedication to Woolner, so it seems likely that Rossetti did not send it to Woolner with the others.
