In this artwork, how is the Context discussed?
Millais and his Pre-Raphaelite colleague William Holman Hunt had both produced drawings illustrating episodes from the poem, but only Millais worked his up into a full painting (Hunt's 1868 Isabella and the Pot of Basil used a completely different composition). Both drawings used distorted perspective and angular poses characteristic of medieval art, by which the Pre-Raphaelites were influenced. Millais also draws on the precedent of William Hogarth's satirical depictions of an arranged marriage Marriage à-la-mode.
As has been suggested by some, the figure of Isabella is probably inspired by that of the Duchess of Milan Beatrice d'Este, of whom Milleis himself had just reproduced a drawing and from which he takes up the hairstyle of the coazzone (the long braid covered with cloth that falls behind the shoulders).
William Holman Hunt Marriage à-la-mode Isabella and the Pot of Basil Beatrice d'Este William Hogarth Pre-Raphaelite coazzone