97 cm × 77 cm (38 in × 30 in)
Wikimedia Commons
My First Sermon is an oil painting by the English artist John Everett Millais (1829–1896), painted in 1863. A fancy picture
Genre of painting popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, characteristically portraying an individual or group of individuals engaged in some everyday pursuit., it depicts a young girl listening intently to a sermon in church for the first time. Millais used his own daughter Effie as the model.[1]
The painting shows a young girl sitting in a high-backed church pew, wearing a cloak, hat and muff. It was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1863, and was well received.[2] Along with The Eve of St Agnes, the painting led to Millais’ election to full membership of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1863.[3]
The picture is now in the collection of the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London, having been bequeathed by the art collector Charles Gassiot in 1902.[4]
Millais produced a sequel in 1864, My Second Sermon
Fancy picture by the English artist John Everett Millais, created in 1864, depicting a young girl who has fallen asleep while listening to a church sermon., which Gassiot also donated to the Guildhall Art Gallery in 1902. In it, the young girl has fallen asleep in her pew.[5]