Specimen drawing 'Cain fleeing from the body of Abel'

This 1846 specimen drawing of Cain Fleeing from the Body of Abel was created during Millais's student years at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the highest prizes with exceptional frequency. The drawing demonstrates the rigorous academic training that formed the foundation beneath the Pre-Raphaelite revolution Millais would help initiate two years later: precise linear description of the human figure in dramatic action, classical subject matter, and the demonstration of compositional skill. Cain's flight—carrying the guilt of the first murder—was a standard academic subject, and Millais's treatment shows his thorough absorption of classical figure composition before his rejection of academic conventions in 1848–49.

The biblical narrative is rendered with the precise draughtsmanship that won Millais prizes at the Royal Academy, the figure of Cain drawn with exceptional anatomical accuracy for a sixteen-year-old student.