- Artist
- Ford Madox Brown 1821–1893
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1232 × 991 mm
frame: 1490 × 1263 × 115 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1906
- Reference
- N02063
Online caption
The Pre-Raphaelites often sought inspiration from British writers. This painting by Ford Madox Brown celebrates the medieval poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. Brown considered Chaucer to be a poet ‘of the people’, as he was one of the first to write in local English rather than Latin. This picture is a copy of Brown’s largest painting of 1851, intended to decorate the new Houses of Parliament. Brown took great pains to study details from nature. He said, ‘treating the light and shade absolutely, as it exists at any one moment, instead of... in generalised style’.
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