Ruskin had a generally high regard for Mulready who sometimes attended his birthday parties ( Works, 4.357). He saw in Mulready, a strong colourist 'of the most refined handling ever perhaps exhibited in animal painting' ( Works, 4.336), and 'whose works, perhaps alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing with resplendence of colour' ( Works, 8.19). However, Ruskin took deep offence to an exhibited series of Mulready figure studies:
Of all the pieces of art that I know, skillful in execution, and not criminal in intention,- without exception, quite the most vulgar, and in the solemn sense of the word, most abominable, are the life studies which are said to be the best made in modern times, - those of Mulready, exhibited as models in the Kensington Museum ( Works, 22.235).
Ruskin also attacked the drawings in his Val D' Arno lectures, suggesting that: 'Mulready's drawings from the Nude are more degraded and bestial than the worst grotesques of the Byzantine or even Indian image makers' ( Works, 23.18).