John Stuart Mill

Title

John Stuart Mill

Artist

G. F. Watts

Status

R. A.

First Exhibited Date

1874

Type

Oil on canvas

Size (HxW, mm)

666 x 533

Current Exhibition Location

Watts Gallery: COMWG 86

Lent By

Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., M. P.

Catalog Number

55

Catalog Page

9

Catalog Description

John Stuart Mill, who died in 1873, and of whom there is a memorial statue on the Thames Embankment close to Blackfriars Bridge, was the greatest English writer of his time on logic, political economy and politics. In 1865, he gave up, as he said, his "tranquil and retired existence as a writer of books, for the less congenial occupation of a Member of the House of Commons," and was returned to Parliament by the working men of Westminster. Like all great portraits, this picture shows the character as well as the features of the man -- his clear and incisive intellect, his broad and keen observation, his strong memory, and his latent stores of tenderness.