The Seamstress

John Everett Millais

Date: 1860

Materials: Watercolour

Millais did much book illustration in the 1860s, making regular contributions to several of the day's leading magazines. 'The Seamstress' was designed to accompany a story in 'Once a Week' for October 1860. In a more genteel variation on the theme of the fallen woman, the narrator recalls tracking down a lost love fallen on hard times; abandoned by a faithless lover, she supports herself and her baby by piece-work sewing.

The plight of such impoverished seamstresses was first brought to public attention through Thomas Hood's poem 'The Song of the Shirt', published in the 1843 Christmas issue of Punch.