21 Facts About Effie Gray

Effie Gray had previously married the art critic John Ruskin, but she left him with the marriage never having been consummated; it was annulled.

Euphemia Chalmers Effie Gray was born on 7 May 1828 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland to lawyer and businessman George Effie Gray and Sophia Margaret, daughter of Andrew Jameson, Sheriff-substitute of Fife.

Effie Gray grew up at Bowerswell, an Italianate-style house near the foot of Kinnoull Hill.

Effie Gray was an assiduous student at Avonbank winning prizes in every year but was taken out of school to be a support to her mother when her siblings died of scarlet fever.

Effie Gray's family knew Ruskin's father and encouraged a match between the two when she had matured.

For Effie Gray, Venice provided an opportunity to socialise while Ruskin was engaged in solitary studies.

When she met John Everett Millais five years later, Effie Gray was still a virgin.

Effie Gray alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason.

Effie Gray then became close to Millais when he accompanied the couple on a trip to Scotland in order to paint Ruskin's portrait according to the critic's artistic principles.

Effie Gray sent humorous cartoons of himself, Gray and Ruskin to friends.

Effie Gray sent back her wedding ring with a note announcing her intention to file for an annulment.

In 1855, she married John Millais and they had eight children together: Everett, born in 1856; George, born in 1857; Effie Gray, born in 1858; Mary, born in 1860; Alice, born in 1862; Geoffrey, born in 1863; John in 1865; and Sophie in 1868.

Effie Gray modelled for a number of her husband's works, notably Peace Concluded, which idealises her as an icon of beauty and fertility.

Rose's parents were concerned and wrote to Effie Gray, asking for her opinion of Ruskin as a husband.

Effie Gray was an effective manager of Millais' career and often collaborated with him in choosing his subjects.

Effie Gray's journal indicates her high regard for her husband's art, and his works are still recognisably Pre-Raphaelite in style several years after his marriage.

Effie Gray had been officially presented to Queen Victoria on 20 June 1850.

Effie Gray had an interest in local and family history, and corresponded with Perthshire historian Robert Scott Fittis, author of Sketches of the Olden Times in Perthshire, about the Effie Gray family history.

Sixteen months after Millais' death in August 1896, Effie Gray died at Bowerswell on 23 December 1897.

Effie Gray was buried beside her son George, who died aged 21, in Kinnoull Parish churchyard, Perth, which is depicted in Millais's painting The Vale of Rest.

Effie Gray's father had donated the Millais window, the West window, to Kinnoull Church in 1870.