And of course, it had to happen eventually, I have reproduced as this month's picture Sir John Millais' famous painting, 'Bubbles'. For most of its existence it has been best known as an early advertisement for Pears' soap, and is still recognised as an exquisitely painful example of Victorian chocolate-boxish sentimentality.Of course, at 'Petticoat Discipline Monthly' that makes it an ideal painting to adorn our front cover.

The Victorians were not really much like their popular image. The painting was attacked by some at its first unveiling in 1866 - the painter had been one of the most strikingly original artists in Britain in his youth, and was a member of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. Readers may recall a famous painting of the death of Ophelia, her long, red hair floating gently on the waters, and her coronet weeds floating around her. That painting was by the same artist.

John Millais was born in Southampton in 1829. He was a child prodigy, and was the youngest student ever accepted by the Royal Academy School, at the age of 11. He married the former wife of John Ruskin, after that marriage had been annulled because of non-consummation (John Ruskin had severe problems regarding marital matters). He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1863, and after that concentrated on his studies of children, painted in a much more conservative style than his earlier pre-Raphaelite work.

The rights to the painting were acquired by Pears, who added a bar of their famous glistening, translucent, amber soap. That company had been started by Andrew Pears, a Cornish barber (born in 1789) who had moved to London and become very fashionable. He realised that the gentry needed a purer, gentler soap to cleanse their alabaster complections, and Pears' soap was born. It was his grandson, Andrew Pears, who negotiated using the John Millais painting as an advertisement.

It was a brilliant choice, and is still recognised today as a symbol of Pears' soap. When I was young it always appeared as the frontispiece in the wonderful Pears' Cyclopaedias. The model, by the by, was the artist's grandson, who grew up to be an Admiral in the British Navy.