'Study of head of Miss Milly Jones'
signed 'Edward J. Poynter', inscribed 'Study of head of Miss Milly Jones' and dated Dec. 1865 on old label on reverse
coloured chalks
18.5 x 16.5cm (7 5/16 x 6 1/2in).

Footnotes

Provenance
Given by the artist to Edward J. Jawer(?), January 1866
Private collection, UK

The three Jones sisters, Mary Emma, Augusta and Emelie (variously 'Milly' or 'Millie') Eyre modelled for a number of Victorian artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British 1828-1882), Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, ARA (British 1833-1898), James Abbott McNeill Whistler, PRBA (American 1834-1903), Frederick Sandys (British 1829-1904), Frederick, Lord Leighton, PRA (British 1830-1896), Henry Holiday (British 1839-1927) and Albert Joseph Moore (British 1841-1893).

Emelie ('Milly') Eyre Jones (born 1850) posed for several important works by Whistler, including La Princesse du pays de la porcelain (1863-5, hanging in The Peacock Room, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC); Whistler in his Studio, (1865-6, Art Institute of Chicago); The White Symphony: Three Girls, (c.1868, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC); and Symphony in White, No. 3' (1865-7, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham). In the latter work, Milly Jones is seated on the floor, leaning against the divan. The painting was greatly admired by Whistler's colleagues, including Henri Fantin-Latour (French 1836-1904), Alfred Stevens (Belgian 1823-1906), James Tissot (French 1836-1902) and Edgar Degas (French 1834-1917). For Degas, it served as an inspiration for his own Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet 'La Source'. (1868, Brooklyn Museum).

Milly posed for Frederick Sandys, in works including Gentle Spring (1863-5, Asmoleum Museum, Oxford); May Margaret (1865-6, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington); Berenice, Queen of Egypt (1867, Leighton House Collection, no.22); and Valkyrie (1868-1873, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, Wirral). She also posed for Albert Joseph Moore, in works such as A musician (1865-6, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven); and Azeleas (1867-8, Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin).

Milly Jones later became an actress and married Frederick Henry Robson.

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- 19th Century & Orientalist Paintings