Vanessa (Millais painting) Vanessa (Millais painting) Vanessa (1868) is a painting by John Everett Millais in Sudley House, Liverpool. It is a fancy portrait depicting Jonathan Swift's close friend and correspondent Esther Vanhomrigh (1688-1723), who was known by that nickname, which Swift himself invented for her. "Vanessa" represents a major departure in Millais's art because he abandons fully for the first time the detailed finish that was still to be seen in "Waking" and "Sleeping", exhibited in the previous year. Influenced by the work of Diego Velázquez and Joshua Reynolds, Millais paints with dramatic, visible brush strokes in vivid colours, creating what has
The Girl in the Fireplace and the "extremely touching" story. He wrote that "with a little more attention to temporal details, this episode would have been considered as one of the series' greatest moments". In particular, Haque wrote that the episode would have worked better had the writers explained more precisely why the Doctor could not use the TARDIS to visit Madame de Pompadour before she died. "Metro" said the clockwork androids were one of the "most memorable villains" while "The Guardian"s Daniel Martin said, "The Girl in the Fireplace" is "one of the most acclaimed episodes from the Davies era". Ross Ruediger from "Slant