William Powell Frith

Dolly Varden

c.1842–9

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1840

Free entry

Artist: William Powell Frith 1819–1909
Medium: Oil paint on wood
Dimensions: Support: 273 x 216 mm
frame: 470 x 411 x 75 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Mrs E.J. Thwaites 1955
Reference: T00041

Display caption

Dolly Varden is a character in Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel Barnaby Rudge, set in 1780s London. The character inspired a fashionable outfit known as the ‘Dolly Varden’, popular in Britain and the United States between 1865 and 1870. The figure in this work is shown wearing this type of costume. This painting is an example of what became known in the nineteenth-century as a ‘fancy portrait.’ Artists would paint portraits from imagination and name them after characters from popular literature.

Gallery label, February 2019

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On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art N05244