John Everett Millais first exhibited the painting The Romans Leaving Britain at the Royal Academy in 1865. A lively debate sparked in the periodical press. Author hopes to provide valuable insight into constructions of gender and nationhood in Britain at the that time. Author discusses the shifting and conflicting models of national origins and normative gender roles in Victorian painting of the 1850s and 1860s. Then author examines how Millais reflected on these models of national origins and gender roles in this painting by focusing on the changes between the initial drawing and the painting. Finally author examines how the art critics perceived the Celtic woman and the Roman in the painting.