This illustrated lecture by Martin Beek examines John Everett Millais’s controversial 1850 masterpiece, Christ in the House of His Parents. Exhibited at the Royal Academy, its realistic, un-idealised depiction of the Holy Family incited widespread public outrage and accusations of blasphemy. Notably, Charles Dickens vehemently condemned the work, whereas Queen Victoria lauded its artistic merit. The talk will analyse the fervent contemporary criticism and explores the underlying factors of Dickens’s prejudice. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the painting epitomises early Pre-Raphaelite principles through precise realism, whilst aligning its complex symbolism with the Oxford Movement and mid-nineteenth-century Catholic theological aesthetics.