The Order of Release, 1746
Artist	John Everett Millais
Year	1852–1853
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	102.9 cm × 73.7 cm (40.5 in × 29.0 in)
Location	Tate Britain, London

The Order of Release, 1746 is a painting byJohn Everett Millais exhibited in 1853. It is notable for marking the beginnings of Millais's move away from the highly medievalistPre-Raphaelitism of his early years.Effie Gray, who later left her husbandJohn Ruskin for Millais, modelled for the female figure.

The painting depicts the wife of a Highland Jacobite soldier, who has been imprisoned after theJacobite rising of 1745, with an order securing his release. She holds her child, showing the order to a guard, while her husband embraces her.

TheIllustrated London News reviewed the painting as follows:

It is time now that we speak of Millais – Millais the Pre-Raffaelite; the "pretender" Millais that was; the "usurper" Millais that is; the "legitimate" Millais that perhaps (much virtue in that little word) may be; and who has certainly a larger crowd of admirers in his little corner in the Middle Room than all the Academicians put together command; …

Truth to say, Mr. Millais, in this "Order of Release" (265), has achieved for himself an "order of merit" worth more than any academic honour, and has earned a fame which a whole corporate academy might be proud to portion amongst its constituent members. Whilst we admit – nay assert this – we would by no means wish to be understood as enrolling ourselves incontinently of this young artist's "party" (for there is partisanship in everything, even in art); but simply as asserting that Pre-Raffaelitism (or rather the artists who have been foolishly styled Pre-Raffaelites) is a "great fact", and perhaps may lead to the regeneration of art in this country; …

The subject is simply that of a wife, with child in her arms, coming with an order of release for her husband, who has been taken in the Civil Wars. The husband, overcome with emotions, and weak from a recent wound (his arm is in a sling), can but fall upon her neck and weep; moan, "firm of purpose", sheds no tear; she has none to shed; but her eye is red and heavy with weeping and waking; and she looks at the stern and unconcerned gaoler with a proud look, expressing that she has won the reward for all her trouble past. The colouring, the textural execution, are marvellous (for these degenerate days).^[1]

The dark, generalised background is a departure from the highly detailed backgrounds of earlier works such asOphelia, as is the emphaticchiaroscuro. However, the portrayal of tense relationships disrupted by historical dramas was a continuation of the theme ofA Huguenot andThe Proscribed Royalist, 1651.

While working on the painting, Millais began to develop a friendship with Effie, the wife of his principal supporter, the criticJohn Ruskin. A study for the painting has a drawing of her head on one side and an image of a man kneeling in supplication to a woman on the other, labelled "accepted."

The title of the painting was adopted for the 1947 bookThe Order of Release byWilliam Milbourne James about thelove triangle, and also of a radio play about it broadcast in 1998.^[2] The painting of the picture is dramatised onstage in the playMrs Ruskin (2003) byKim Morrissey,^[3] and in the TV seriesDesperate Romantics (2009).

• List of paintings by John Everett Millais

• The Order of Release at The Victorian Web

• Paintings by John Everett Millais
• 1853 paintings
• Jacobite rising of 1745
• Dogs in art
• Paintings of children
• Works about families
• Paintings in the Tate galleries
• Works about law enforcement
• War of the Austrian Succession in art

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• Use dmy dates from April 2022