Bubbles (painting) Bubbles (painting) Bubbles, originally titled A Child's World, is a painting by Sir John Everett Millais that became famous when it was used over many generations in advertisements for Pears soap. During Millais's lifetime it led to widespread debate about the relationship between art and advertising. The painting was one of many child pictures for which Millais had become well known in his later years. It was modelled by his five-year-old grandson William Milbourne James and was based on 17th-century Dutch precursors in the tradition of vanitas imagery, which commented upon the transience of life. These sometimes depicted young boys
Mariana (Millais) is on the floor towards the bottom right corner is a detail that Millais took from Tennyson's poem: "the mouse behind the mouldering wainscots shriek'd or from the crevice peer'd about". Together, Millais' painting and Tennyson's poem create an intriguing storyline for the reader to follow. Mariana (Millais) Mariana is an 1851 oil-on-wood painting by John Everett Millais. The image is based on the solitary Mariana from William Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure", written between 1601 and 1606. In the play, Mariana was to be married, but was rejected when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck. Her story was retold