Ophelia dress

Elizabeth Siddall wore a very fine silver embroidered dress bought by Millais from a second-hand shop for four pounds (this would be about £250 today). In March, 1852, Millais wrote to Mrs Combe "To-day I have purchased a really splendid lady's ancient dress- all flowered over in silver embroidery-and I am going to paint it for 'Ophelia'. You may imagine it is something rather good when I tell you it cost me, old and dirty as it is, four pounds." (The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, John Guille Millais, vol. 1, 1899, p.162).