The four people in the painting are Alice and Sophie from his sister-in-law's Gully family, and local girls Isabella Nicol and Matilda Proudovert, who were under ten years old at the time. "Lily of Jersey" Millais has a high reputation, but he is not the most famous person from the island. The most famous one is the actress Lily Langtry (1853-1929) , she was a courtesan made famous by this painting. The painting shows an officer in black saying goodbye to his lover on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He was a German Braunschweig cavalryman whose unit would fight with the British army against Napoleon's army. There is a portrait of Napoleon hanging on the wall of the young woman's room. She is well aware of the power of this European overlord, so she clings to the door handle to try to prevent the lover who is likely to never leave the door. In fact, although the French army was defeated at Waterloo, the Brunswick cavalry unit to which this soldier belonged paid a huge sacrifice.