William James (Royal Navy officer, born 1881) sat as a subject for several paintings by his grandfather, Millais. The most well-known of these is "Bubbles", in which the five-year-old William is shown gazing enraptured at a bubble he has just blown. When the painting was used in an advertisement for Pears soap, it became famous. The image dogged James throughout his life, and he was regularly nicknamed "Bubbles". James pursued a career in the Royal Navy, rising to hold a number of important positions. Following early service on the training ship HMS "Britannia", he was confirmed in the rank of sub-lieutenant on 15 April 1901. He was
Esther (Millais painting) paintings by Titian, whose techniques of colouring Millais imitates, along with the modelling of the face and the characteristic "Titian blonde" hair. This also compares with the lush red locks of Millais's earlier picture "The Bridesmaid" and with some contemporary works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Millais's biographer Marion Spielmann wrote that the painting was "the most modernly treated of Millais's early works...more consonant in its strong harmony with the audacious brilliancy of the present day [1898] than the more solid strength of forty years ago." Esther (Millais painting) Esther (1865) is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting the central