17 Facts About Sophie Gray

Sophie Gray was a younger sister of Euphemia "Effie" Gray, who married Millais in 1855 after the annulment of her marriage to John Ruskin.

Sophie Gray died in 1882, probably as a result of her anorexia.

Sophie Gray was born in October 1843 to Sophia Margaret Gray, nee Jameson, and George Gray, a Scottish lawyer and businessman.

From a young age, Sophie Gray was exposed to the increasingly strained circumstances of the Ruskins' unconsummated marriage.

Sophie Gray had been staying with the Ruskins, at their home in Herne Hill since just after Christmas 1853 and appears to have been complicit in her sister's flight.

However, Sophie Gray alighted at Hitchin, Hertfordshire where her parents were waiting.

Sophie Gray's mother took her place on the train, while she and her father returned to London to deliver a package from Effie to her solicitors.

Effie's surviving letters to her parents suggest that Sophie Gray kept her well informed of such adverse criticism.

Sophie Gray is depicted in profile, wearing a colourful, striped robe, with long flowing hair, while Alice lies somewhat provocatively with a blade of grass in her mouth.

Sophie Gray is a sensual, knowing, and direct image, which, almost inevitably, has provoked questions about the nature of Millais's relationship with his sister-in-law.

Sophie Gray became restless and obsessed with music, especially piano playing.

Tuke had treated Millais's friend, the painter Edwin Landseer, and, a year or so after Sophie Gray came to him, was involved in the case of Harriet Mordaunt, respondent in a scandalous divorce action.

Sophie Gray lived with the family of one of Tuke's colleagues until she was well enough to move to lodgings in Hammersmith in 1869 and then back to Bowerswell in Perth.

On 16 July 1873 Sophie Gray married James Key Caird, a Dundee jute manufacturer who had courted her for several years.

However, attempts to dissuade Sophie Gray from going ahead with the wedding were muted by fears of triggering a further collapse of her health.

In 1875, he forbade Sophie Gray from staying with Effie on her way to France and, generally, at a time when his business was expanding, he seems to have been both inconsiderate and uncaring towards her.

In Emma Thompson's film Effie Gray, completed in 2013, Sophie is portrayed by Polly Dartford.