Francis Millet (1848-1912) was a member of a semi-secret club of artists called The Tile Club. His nickname was "The Bulgarian."
Other members of the club included his friends Edwin Austin Abbey, nicknamed "Chestnut," J. Alden Weir "Cadmium", Augustus Saint Gaudens "The Saint," William Merritt Chase "Briareus," Stanford White "The Builder," and Elihu Vedder "The Bishop."
Together they were a well-traveled, but domestic-loving bunch.
The Expansionist (The Traveled Man) - Francis Davis Millet (1899) High Museum
Frank Millet painted this domestic genre scene of a married couple in their home. The husband works at his table, which is festooned with puppets from Southeast Asia.Curators at the High Museum describe it this way: "Following extensive travel in Asia, Francis Millet painted this ambitious work. A couple in historical dress occupy a room filled with exotic souvenirs—Indonesian puppets, Javanese dolls, Japanese books, and other curiosities—that Millet based on his own collection. He also modeled the setting after the parlor of a sixteenth-century house where he had lived in England. Despite these autobiographical elements, the figures are dressed in eighteenth-century costume, and the mood of the work, with its soft natural light and exquisite still lifes, recalls seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting."
Between Two Fires, by Francis Millet, 1892. Oil on canvas 36" x 29" Tate Gallery, London.
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Frank Millet died in the sinking of the Titanic.
Read more on Wikipedia Francis Millet
I suspect he was nicknamed "The Bulgarian" because of his alleged homosexuality. Apparently the term "Bulgarian" was sometimes associated with the medieval Gnostic Christian sect known as the Bogomils, who originated in Bulgaria. The Bogomils themselves were alleged homosexuals, but this is probably slander, as Gnostic sects were often slandered by more orthodox Christian sects. Excellent paintings however.
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