John Everett Millais
Margaret Wilson was a young Scottish Covenanter from Wigtown in Scotland. She was executed by drowning for refusing to swear an oath declaring James VII (James II of England) as head of the church. She died along with Margaret McLachlan. The two Margarets were known as the Wigtown Martyrs.
Margaret, who was a teenager, was tied to a stake in the Solway Firth and left to drown as the tide came slowly in. The picture has the loose and painterly handling of Millais’ late manner, quite different from the sharp focus of his Pre-Raphaelite style. An interesting fact: although the painting today shows Margaret wearing an open-neck blouse, when conservators x-rayed the piece, they found that the figure had once been a nude looking sharply to the right.