A fishing expedition: An illustrated letter to John Leech

This delightful and characteristic letter from Millais to his closest friend, the illustrator John Leech, contains a remarkable sketch of the artist, being held back by another man, standing in the bow of a low rowboat in his favourite fishing hat, and stretching out to maintain a hold on his rod, snapped in two, but still attached by the flyline, its hook lodged in the mouth of a large fighting stickleback. A third man, staring at a caricatural reflection of himself, holds fast to an oar that has come loose from its moorings and that he lodges in the riverbed to anchor the craft. On Monday 13 June 1853, Millais was a little over a week from setting off to Scotland with his brother William Henry, and John and Effie Ruskin, a fateful trip which would result in some of the most satisfying angling of his life, a magnificent portrait of the writer (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and the young Millais and Effie falling deeply in love.

We are grateful to Dr Jason Rosenfeld, Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.