| Description | Letter to Alexander Macdonald of Kepplestone from George du Maurier, New Grove House, Hampstead, London, thanking for the whisky, Millais has finished his portrait, one sitting cancelled because of fog, but they spent the day smoking and chatting, the painting is 'more like me than I am myself - I thought I was a less robust and more poetical individual', small sketch of portrait, Millais' chief challenge was to stop du Maurier looking like Alma Tadema, as at the last Academy dinner Tadema had sat beside the Editor of the Times and talked with him for some time and the editor had thought he was du Maurier, at the private view of Tadema's pictures at the Grosvenor Gallery, du Maurier was taken for Tadema, and invited all those friends who made the mistake round to Tadema's house, 'Hope they won't want to borrow money from him', his chief difficulty was imitating Tadema's voice, but he thinks he managed it, 26 December 1882. |