Serjeant Ralph Thomas

1843–1847

The Academy’s silver and gold medals

In 1843 he won a silver medal for a drawing, and in 1847 a gold medal for his painting The Tribe of Benjamin Seizing the Daughters of Shiloh.

1846

“Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru” at the Academy’s exhibition

In 1846 his history painting Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru was selected for the Academy’s summer exhibition, and the critics judged it the best on show that year.

September 1847

Founds the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with Hunt and Rossetti

While at the Royal Academy Schools he met William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in September 1847 the three formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at the Millais family home at 83 Gower Street, off Bedford Square.

1850

The scandal over “Christ in the House of His Parents”

Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) was judged excessively realistic, showing a working-class Holy Family in a messy carpentry workshop, and The Times called it outrageous. Millais was undaunted: the critic John Ruskin saw his outstanding talent at once and backed him, and his works were always accepted for the Academy’s exhibitions, however radical.