Mariana in the Moated Grange

This is a study for Millais' oil painting Mariana. He exhibited the finished work at the Royal Academy in 1851, and it is now in the collection of Tate Britain (TO7553). The painting - and this sketch - illustrate some lines from Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Mariana’ (1830):

She only said, 'My life is dreary,

He cometh note', she said;

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!'

Tennyson's poem was itself inspired by William Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure. In this drama, Mariana is rejected by her fiancé, Angelo. She retires to a lonely moated grange, where she waits longingly to be reunited with him. Millais' picture shows her standing up from the embroidery that she has been working on to pass the time, and stretching her aching back. The gesture emphasises how long and tiring her lonely vigil has been.