Born in Chatham, Kent, Dadd moved to London with his family in 1834. Showing a talent for drawing, he enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in 1837. In July 1842, on the recommendation of David Roberts, he was chosen by Sir Thomas Phillips (1801–1867) to accompany him on a tour of Italy, Greece, the Middle East and Egypt. This sheet of on-the-spot sketches is likely to date from the latter part of this tour. By the time Phillips’ party embarked on a trip up the Nile, Dadd was clearly suffering the start of a mental breakdown, becoming delusional and violent. On his return to England, in spring 1843, he was taken by his family to recuperate in Cobham, but on 28^th August he murdered his father, suspecting he was the devil in disguise, and fled to France. He was extradited and spent the rest of his life in asylums, first Bethlem Hospital (previously Bedlam) in Southwark, and in 1864 he was moved to Broadmoor.

In 1853 Dr William Hood was appointed physician at Bethlem and encouraged Dadd to continue painting while in hospital, becoming a great collector of his work. Many of Dadd’s greatest work dates from this period, including his best-known painting The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (Tate Gallery) which he worked on from 1855 until 1864.

Exhibited: Sotheby’s, London, Watercolours from Winchester College, 1988, no. 37; Watts Gallery (later at Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London), Richard Dadd: the Art of Bedlam, 2015–2016

Literature: Andrew Clayton-Payne, Richard Dadd: Dreams of Fancy (London, 2008), p. 17; Nicholas Tromans, Richard Dadd: the Artist and the Asylum (London, 2011), p. 58, plate 29

Provenance: Bequest of Colonel Arthur Brooke, 1954