Effie Gray

Effie Gray
Effie Gray painted by Thomas Richmond. She thought the portrait made her look like "a graceful Doll".
Born	Euphemia Chalmers Gray (1828-05-07)7 May 1828 Perth, Scotland
Died	23 December 1897(1897-12-23) (aged 69) Perth, Scotland
Spouse(s)	John Ruskin (1848-1854; annulled) John Everett Millais (1855-1896; his death)

Euphemia Chalmers "Effie" Millais, Lady Millais née Gray (7 May 1828 – 23 December 1897) was the wife of the critic John Ruskin, but she left her husband without the marriage being consummated. She later married his protégé, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. This famous Victorian "love triangle" has been dramatised in plays, films and an opera.

Effie Gray, initially known by the pet name of "Phemy", was born in Perth, Scotland, and lived in Bowerswell, the house where Ruskin's grandfather had committed suicide. Her family knew Ruskin's father, who encouraged a match between them. Ruskin wrote the fantasy novel The King of the Golden River for her in 1841, when she was twelve years old. After their marriage in 1848, they travelled to Venice, where Ruskin was researching his book The Stones of Venice.

Their different personalities are thrown into sharp relief by their contrasting priorities. For Effie, Venice provided an opportunity to socialise while Ruskin was engaged in solitary studies. In particular, he made a point of drawing the Ca' d'Oro and the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), because he feared they would soon be destroyed by the occupying Austrian troops. One of the troops, Lieutenant Charles Paulizza, made friends with Effie, apparently with no objection from Ruskin. Her brother, among others, later claimed that Ruskin was deliberately encouraging the friendship to compromise her, as an excuse to separate.

When she met Millais five years later, she was still a virgin, as Ruskin had persistently put off consummating the marriage. His reasons are unclear, but they involved disgust with some aspect of her body. As she later wrote to her father,

"He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason... that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person the first evening 10th April."