Order of Release, John Everett Millais, 1853.

Bonnie Prince Charlie led a 1745 uprising to regain the British throne, quelled at the famous Battle of Culloden. Here the wife of a wounded, captured Scot secures his freedom from imprisonment. The painting by pre-Raphaelite Millais gave him his reputation and his wife, the model here, Effie Gray, then married unhappily to art critic John Ruskin. See how the black background makes the classic red-green contrasts pop. Everyone here is tense, straining--the guard to read the order, the man to embrace his wife, the woman to perform three tasks: carry the child, present the paper, and receive her man. Even the dog strains, physicalizing the excitement of the reunion.