Sophy Gray

Sophia Margaret "Sophie" Gray (28 October 1843 – 15 March 1882), later Sophia Margaret Caird, was a Scottish model for her brother-in-law, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. She was a younger sister of Euphemia "Effie" Gray, who married Millais in 1855 after the annulment of her marriage to John Ruskin. The spelling of her name was, after around 1861, sometimes "Sophy," but only within the family. In public she was known as Sophie and later in life, after her marriage, as Sophia.

From the late 1860s, she suffered from a mental illness which seems to have involved a form of anorexia nervosa. In 1873, she married the Scottish entrepreneur James Caird and together they had a daughter. She died in 1882, probably as a result of her anorexia.

Background Sophie Gray was born in October 1843 to Sophia Margaret Gray, née Jameson (1808–1894), and George Gray (1798–1877), a Scottish lawyer and businessman. Her maternal grandfather, Andrew Jameson, became Sheriff-substitute of Fife. Effie Gray (1828–1897), known initially to the family as "Phemy," was the first of fifteen children, and Sophie was the tenth—three sisters, one also named Sophia Margaret, predeceased her. Two of her five elder brothers died before her birth and two passed away before she was seven.

The family lived at Bowerswell, a house re-built in 1842 near the foot of Kinnoull Hill, south-east of Perth. In fact, through her increasing presence in the Ruskin household, Gray may, in some respects, have been a convenient chaperone for her elder sister, whose largely independent social life tended to attract comment. According to Effie, Ruskin's manservant, Frederick Crawley, expressed to Gray his concern that other servants might spread gossip "all over Camberwell."

Gray's governess of three years, a French woman named Delphine, appears to have been discharged by the Grays in March 1854 because of Gray's habit of confiding in her. they boarded a train for Edinburgh. However, Gray alighted at Hitchin, Hertfordshire where her parents were waiting. Her mother took her place on the train, while she and her father returned to London to deliver a package from Effie to her solicitors. That evening a citation of nullity was delivered to Ruskin, together with certain effects such as Effie's wedding ring and her keys. (Crawley, who probably had a prior inkling of what was afoot, remained on the train with Effie and her mother.) In early 1854, Millais painted a portrait of Gray for her parents. Through her regular visits to his studio in Gower Street, London, where she impressed Millais with her patience, Charles Edward Perugini also painted a portrait of Gray as a young woman; the date is not known with certainty Millais' Spring, also known as Apple Blossoms, with Gray on the far left.

Autumn Leaves and Spring In Autumn Leaves, Gray is one of four girls beside a smoking bonfire of leaves. Her sister Alice is also in this picture, together with two local girls at the right procured by Effie.

In the later Spring, eight girls (whose ages ranged from 12 to 15) recline in an orchard. Gray is depicted at the left of the painting in profile, wearing a colourful, striped robe, with long flowing hair. Alice appears twice (and possibly three times) - she lies on the right, somewhat provocatively with a blade of grass in her mouth; she is also the girl fourth from the right, lying with her elbow on the ground and resting her head on her hand. She may also be the seated figure in blue, third from the left.

Sophie Gray and Gray’s relationship with Millais Sophie Gray is a sensual, knowing, and direct image, which, almost inevitably, has provoked questions about the nature of Millais' relationship with his sister-in-law. There was undoubtedly a strong affection between them, which may well have grown into mutual infatuation. According to Mary Lutyens, who researched the lives of Effie, Ruskin and Millais, it was rumoured that Effie had to send Gray away because of concerns that she and Millais were growing too close; however, there is no clear evidence of a more intimate relationship between them. Gray's parents were content for Millais to chaperone her – for example, on an overnight train to London – and, whatever the truth of any rumour, Effie remained close to her sister and often invited her to stay after she and Millais moved back to London in 1861. to hang alongside that of Gray. As Cooper has remarked, this "after-life" of Sophie Gray demonstrated its "erotic potential." Tuke had treated Millais' friend, the painter Edwin Landseer, 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. who had courted her for several years. Caird was disliked by her family, who thought him two-faced and who were still mindful of Effie's disastrous marriage to Ruskin. They would have been aware also that the port of Dundee had, for some time, been taking trade away from Perth. The father was notably absent during Gray's confinement, thereby intensifying bad feeling with her family. In 1875, he forbade Gray from staying with Effie on her way to France The portrait hung in Effie and John Everett Millais' house at Palace Gate, London, and remains in the family.

By the 1880s Gray had become increasingly emaciated (the effects largely hidden from others by the weight of late Victorian clothing), and in 1882 returned to the care of Tuke. but she died in 1888 at age 13. James Caird subsequently used his wealth to support Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917, and was a significant benefactor to the city of Dundee. Effie Gray is played by Dakota Fanning.