John Ruskin was an early advocate of the Pre-Raphaelite group of artists and part of their success was due to his efforts.

Millais found it very difficult to be in the same room as Ruskin when he was completing the work in London, calling it "the most hateful task I have ever had to perform".

Ruskin himself temporarily moved the portrait so that his father would not see it, since he was concerned that he would damage or destroy it.

It was left to his daughter, the photographer Sarah Angelina Acland, who kept it above her desk at the Acland family home in Broad Street, central Oxford[6][7] and later at her own home in Park Town, North Oxford, where she photographed it in colour.

It was accepted by the British Government in lieu of inheritance tax in 2013 and permanently allocated to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to which it had been on loan since 2012 and where it has been on display since 2013.