RICHARD DADD
(1817-1886)

 

A Hermit

1853

watercolour on paper

35.7 x 25.7 cm

inscribed: Sketch of a Hermit by Richard Dadd Bethlem Hospital 1853

P.397

After murdering his father on 28 August 1843 in the grounds of Cobham Park, Kent, Dadd escaped to France, where he was soon arrested and brought back to England. The following year he was certified insane and was admitted to the state criminal lunatic asylum at Bethlem Hospital, St. George’s Fields, Southwark. In 1864 he was transferred to the newly built Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire where he died of consumption in January 1886.

EJ

PROVENANCE: S.E. Lucas; Christie’s sale 17 March 1961, lot 25; Maas Gallery, from whom purchased by Gallery, July 1961.

EXHIBITIONS: Pre-Raphaelites and Contemporaries, London, Maas Gallery, 1961, no.25; Watercolours from Bedford, Norwich, Castle Museum, 1965, no.9 as Hermit in his Cell; The Late Richard Dadd, London, Tate Gallery, 1974, no.110.

REFERENCES: P. Allderidge, Richard Dadd,, 1974, p.57, pl.50; D. Greysmith, Richard Dadd: the Rock and Castle of Seclusion, 1973, pp.82 & 174,p.47; P. Allderidge, The Late Richard Dadd, 1974, p.86, no.110; P. Allderidge, Richard Dadd, 1993, pp.24 & 65, pl.19.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.