Pot Pourri is an 1856 oil painting by the English artist John Everett Millais, depicting two children plucking rose petals into a decorated porcelain bowl, to make pot pourri.
The painting has been described as "a dreamy mood picture in a similar vein to Autumn Leaves" (1855âÂÂ56).
Millais painted Pot Pourri in Scotland in the summer of 1856, just after the birth of his first son, Everett. The family were staying at Annat Lodge, and here Millais started work in August on both Pot Pourri and ' (the latter completed in 1857).
Effie Gray, Millais' wife, recalled of Pot Pourri:
Windus sold the painting in an auction of his paintings held on Saturday 26 March 1859. John Ruskin, whose marriage to Effie had been annulled in 1854, wrote to The Times to correct its misreporting that he had bought Pot Pourri at the sale: "I neither purchased Mr. Millais's picture, nor any other picture at that sale."
The painting was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in 1886, in the exhibition The Works of Sir John Everett Millais (catalogue number 80). It was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1984 in The Pre-Raphaelites exhibition (catalogue number 78). At the time it was owned by Mr and Mrs L. S. Melunsky.
The painting sold at auction at Sotheby's in London on 5 November 1997 for ã70,000 ("Victorian Pictures" sale, Lot 193), to an anonymous buyer.