
In Tate Britain
- Artist
- Richard Dadd 1817–1886
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1010 × 1264 mm
frame: 1255 × 1515 × 100 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1947
- Reference
- N05767
Display caption
In the early 1840s Richard Dadd accompanied Sir Thomas Phillips on a long tour of the Middle East as a travelling artist. On his return he showed signs of mental disturbance and murdered his father, claiming he was under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. Untitled by the artist, this painting is an assemblage of some of the scenes he encountered. In a letter of 1842, Dadd revealed his elation and confusion: ‘the excitement of these scenes has been enough to turn the brain of an ordinary weak-minded person like myself, and often I have lain down at night with my imagination so full of wild vagaries that I have really and truly doubted my own sanity.’
Gallery label, November 2016
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Film and audio
Features
You might like
-
Henry Perronet Briggs The First Interview between the Spaniards and the Peruvians
exhibited 1827 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer A Dialogue at Waterloo
exhibited 1850 -
Thomas Sidney Cooper Among the Cumberland Mountains - Mist Clearing Off
1847, exhibited 1847 -
John Frederick Herring The Frugal Meal
exhibited 1847 -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation)
1849–50 -
Robert Braithwaite Martineau The Last Day in the Old Home
1862 -
Ford Madox Brown Chaucer at the Court of Edward III
1856–68 -
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt Christ in the House of His Parents (‘The Carpenter’s Shop’)
1849–50 -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti St Catherine
1857 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt The Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi
1861 -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Girlhood of Mary Virgin
1848–9 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
c.1828 -
Richard Dadd The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke
1855–64 -
Richard Dadd Portrait of a Young Man
1853 -
Richard Dadd Wandering Musicians
c.1878