The Death of Romeo and Juliet

John Everett Millais

Date: 1848

Materials: Pen and black ink

PR drawing style

Comparison of this drawing with Millais's earlier study of 'Elgiva' demonstrates the emergence of a distinct Pre-Raphaelite drawing style during the year 1848.

Known to echo an engraving of 'Romeo and Juliet' by Moritz Retzsch, Millais's drawing has the Pre-Raphaelite virtues of stark simplicity in draughtsmanship and design focusing on a moment of pathos and anguish, freezing the figures into a tableau that more closely resembles an actual event than a stage performance.

Comic elements

A tiny but undeniable element of comic exaggeration appears in this, as in most of Millais's early Pre-Raphaelite ink drawings.

As an accomplished academic draughtsman, he deliberately adopted a less sophisticated manner, and being a man with a good sense of humour it would be surprising if he had not shown signs of taking the Brotherhood's group style just a little less seriously than the others.

Commenting on another such drawing in 1849, William Rossetti noted that Millais:

"has put in some fat men, finding his general tendency towards thin ones".