Bubbles Painter Washed Up No Longer

London's Tate Britain gallery is trying to rescue the cred of a Victorian painter whose best known work is synonymous with crass commercialism. Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais is best known for Bubbles, which he sold to the Pears Soap company to make it one of the most reproduced images in the history of art.

A Tate curator says Millais' lathery collusion is far from a stain—in fact, it makes him "a pioneer in mass reproduction of art." Other paintings in the Tate's new exhibition will include Ophelia, depicting the suicide of Hamlet's lover, and an erotic portrait of Millais's 14-year-old sister-in-law. (More Tate Gallery stories.)