Focus on this artwork and explore the Reception.
The painting was first exhibited in 1851, the year after Millais's painting Christ In The House Of His Parents had been heavily criticised by art critics and the public.
In 1851, Ruskin wrote in defence of the PRB that it "lays in our England the foundations of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for 300 years".  He wrote on 9 May that " there is not a single study of drapery in the whole Academy, be it in large works or small, which for perfect truth, power, and finish, could be compared for an instant with … with the white draperies on the table in Mr. Millais' "Mariana" … And further: that as studies both of drapery and of every minor detail, there has been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as these pictures since the days of Albert Durer."The painting was accepted in lieu of £4.2m of inheritance tax payable on the estate of Roger Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield, who died in 1996.  It was allocated to the Tate Gallery in 1999, when it was described as "arguably the greatest Pre-Raphaelite painting"The Makin Collection of Victorian paintings and drawings, which includes works by artists such as Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, was inherited by his son Christopher Makins and transferred to his residence in Washington DC. The collection had been begun by Henry Francis Makins (1841–1914), who was a friend of Millais, and enlarged by Roger, his grandson.
The Victoria & Albert Museum holds an 1850 study, in pen and ink on paper.
Christopher Makins Christ In The House Of His Parents Raphael inheritance tax Roger Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield Victoria & Albert Museum Mariana