The Boyhood of Raleigh
Two boys on a sea wall at Budleigh Salterton in Devon, spellbound by a sailor's tales of the ocean — the young Walter Raleigh imagining his future.
Raleigh's Wall (Wall Opposite No 5)
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
The Boyhood of Raleigh — at a glance
- Artist
- John Everett Millais (1829–1896)
- Year
- 1870
- Movement
- Pre-Raphaelite / Victorian history painting
- Place
- The sea wall and beach at Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England
- Viewpoint
- A Devon shingle beach and sea wall — a wall on Fore Street is now marked as ‘the painting's wall’; the composition is arranged
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 121 × 142 cm
- Now at
- Tate Britain, London
Overview
The Boyhood of Raleigh is a Victorian history-and-childhood picture by John Everett Millais, painted in 1870 and inspired by a passage in J. A. Froude's essays on England's seafarers. On a stone sea wall, two boys sit rapt while a weathered sailor, arm outstretched towards the water, tells them of the sea and lands beyond; a model ship, an anchor and dead birds lie about. The elder boy is meant as the young Walter Raleigh. It is oil on canvas, about 121 by 142 cm, and it hangs in Tate Britain, London.
Where was The Boyhood of Raleigh painted?
Scholarship Millais painted the picture at Budleigh Salterton on the south coast of Devon, near Hayes Barton where Sir Walter Raleigh was born in 1552; his own sons posed for the boys. A stone sea wall along Fore Street in Budleigh Salterton is now identified as ‘the wall in the painting’ and marked with a plaque, and the beach and its distinctive flat pebbles appear in the picture. The general setting — the Devon shingle beach and sea wall — can be found today, though the exact composition is arranged.
What is in the painting?
The three figures sit and crouch along a low stone wall, seen against a strip of grey-blue sea. The sailor, dark-skinned and barefoot in rough clothes, leans forward and points out over the water; the two fair boys lean in towards him, chins up, wholly absorbed. On the ground: a toy sailing ship, a ship's anchor, coils of rope, a dead bird or two, the round Budleigh pebbles. Overcast light.
Look closely
The sailor's pointing arm
His outstretched arm carries the line from the busy foreground straight out to the empty horizon.
The rapt boys
The two fair-haired boys lean in, chins up, wholly absorbed in the story.
The Budleigh pebbles
The distinctive round flat pebbles of Budleigh Salterton beach lie in the foreground.
The toy ship and anchor
A model sailing ship, a ship's anchor and rope are scattered by the wall.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A tight triangular group on a low wall against the sea, the sailor's pointing arm leading the eye — and the boys' imagination — out to the horizon.
Scholarship Millais builds the picture around the sailor's outstretched arm, which carries the line from the crowded, detailed foreground straight out to the empty sea, so the viewer follows the boys' gaze towards an imagined future. The finish is careful, the props exact.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
The making of an adventurer
The picture is a Victorian meditation on how a great seafaring life begins — in a boy's imagination, fired by a sailor's stories on his home shore. It served an age of empire as an image of national destiny taking root in childhood.
History & provenance
The painting was given to the nation in 1900 and is held by Tate, shown at Tate Britain, London.
Sources
- Tate — collection entry for John Everett Millais, ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ (1870)
- Jason Rosenfeld and Alison Smith, ‘Millais’ (Tate, 2007)
Related paintings
The Blind Girl
1856
Millais's 1856 Pre-Raphaelite picture — a roadside scene set precisely at Winchelsea, with the same minute finish.
The Last of England
1853
Ford Madox Brown's emigrants of 1852–55 — Britain and the sea, seen as departure and loss.
The Children of Edward
1830
Delaroche's Princes in the Tower — Victorian-era children at a moment of destiny, in a real historic place.
More by John Everett Millais