A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford

A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford
Artist	John Everett Millais
Year	1857 (1857)
Dimensions	120 cm × 170 cm (47 in × 67 in)
Location	Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight

A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford (1857) is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting a medieval knight helping two young peasant children over a swollen river. The children are carrying heavy burdens of wood for winter fuel. Though the title refers to the medieval poem Sir Isumbras, the painting does not illustrate a scene from the original text. However Millais's friend, the writer Tom Taylor, wrote verse in a pastiche of the original poem, describing the event depicted. This was included in the original exhibition catalogue.

The background of the painting is based closely on a ruined medieval bridge which stood in Bridge of Earn, Perthshire (since demolished). Some of the village houses (in Back Street) can also be seen, though the tower house or castle to the left is imaginary.

When first exhibited the painting was extremely controversial, and was attacked by many critics. Millais's former supporter John Ruskin declared it to be a "catastrophe". The painting was also satirised in a print by Frederic Sandys, entitled "A Nightmare", in which Millais himself was represented as the knight. His fellow Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt were caricatured as the children, and the horse—transformed into a donkey—was branded with the initials of Ruskin.^[1]