The Death of Chatterton is an oil painting on canvas, by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis (1830 - 1916), now in Tate Britain, London. Two smaller versions, sketches or replicas, are possessed by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. The Tate painting measures 62.2 centimetres (24.5 in) by 93.3 centimetres (36.7 in), [1] and was completed during 1856.
The subject of the painting was the 17-year-old English early Romantic poet Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770), shown dead after he had poisoned himself with arsenic in 1770. Chatterton was considered a Romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's time.
Wallis's Chatterton reveals his association with the Pre-Raphaelite style, seen in the vibrant colours and careful build-up of symbolic detail. He used a bold colour scheme with a contrasting palette and he exploited the fall of the natural light through the window of the garret to implement his much loved style at the time, chiaroscuro. Wallis painted the work in a friend's chamber in Gray's Inn, with St Paul's Cathedral visible on the skyline through the window. It was probably a coincidence that this location was close to the garret in Brooke Street where Chatterton had died 86 years before. [2] The model used for the painting was the young George Meredith, a 19th-century English novelist and poet. [3]
The painting was Wallis's first exhibited work. It was shown at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1856, with a quotation from the Tragedy of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe inscribed on the frame: "Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel bough". It was an immediate success, with John Ruskin describing it as "faultless and wonderful". It drew large crowds at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857, was also exhibited in Dublin in 1859, [2] and was one of the most popular paintings of the 19th century in reproductive print form.
Wallis sold the painting to Augustus Egg in 1856, and Egg sold the right to make engraved reproductions. The painting became the subject of a court case after Dublin photographer James Robinson was inspired to recreate the painting as a tableau vivant so he could sell photographs of the scene. [4] The painting was left to the Tate Gallery by Charles Gent Clement in 1899.
There are two smaller versions of the same subject by Wallis, one either a study or a replica in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which measures 17.3 centimetres (6.8 in) by 25.25 centimetres (9.94 in) and, somewhat unusually for the period, [5] a small oil-on-panel replica at the Yale Center for British Art, which measures 22.7 centimetres (8.9 in) by 30.2 centimetres (11.9 in). [6] The Birmingham work was sold at Christie's in 1875 to Baron Albert Grant and then in 1877 to William Kendrick, who donated it to the gallery in 1918.
The main singer of the group Feu! Chatterton said that he was inspired by this painting for the name of the group.[ citation needed ]
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" partly modelled on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and William Holman Hunt.
Thomas Chatterton was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Frederic George Stephens was a British art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
William Dyce was a Scottish painter, who played a part in the formation of public art education in the United Kingdom, and the South Kensington Schools system. Dyce was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and played a part in their early popularity.
Henry Wallis was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.
Simeon Solomon was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites who was noted for his depictions of Jewish life and same-sex desire. His career was cut short as a result of public scandal following his arrests and convictions for attempted sodomy in 1873 and 1874.
Philip Hermogenes Calderon was a British painter of French birth (mother) and Spanish (father) ancestry who initially worked in the Pre-Raphaelite style before moving towards historical genre. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy in London.
John Brett was a British artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, mainly notable for his highly detailed landscapes.
The Last of England is an 1855 oil-on-panel painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting two emigrants leaving England to start a new life in Australia with their baby. The painting has an oval format and is in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge (1851–52) is the full, exhibited title of a painting by John Everett Millais, and was produced at the height of his Pre-Raphaelite period. It was accompanied, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1852, with a long quote reading: "When the clock of the Palais de Justice shall sound upon the great bell, at daybreak, then each good Catholic must bind a strip of white linen round his arm, and place a fair white cross in his cap.—The order of the Duke of Guise." This long title is usually abbreviated to A Huguenot or A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's Day.
The Awakening Conscience (1853) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which depicts a woman rising from her position in a man's lap and gazing transfixed out room's window.
Dante's Dream is a painting from 1871 by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It hangs in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Sponsa de Libano is a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones dated 1891.
Proserpine is an oil painting on canvas by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1874 and now in Tate Britain. Rossetti began work on the painting in 1871 and painted at least eight separate versions, the last only completed in 1882, the year of his death. Early versions were promised to Charles Augustus Howell. The painting discussed in this article is the so-called seventh version commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland, now at the Tate Gallery, with the very similar final version now at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 is an oil-on-canvas painting by British artist William Dyce, depicting the landscape at Pegwell Bay, on the east coast of Kent. Considered a Pre-Raphaelite work, Dyce employs a mode of heightened realism and intricate detail to create a powerful landscape. It is considered to be Dyce's best painting, and is held by the Tate Gallery.
Our English Coasts, also known as Strayed Sheep, is an oil-on-canvas painting by William Holman Hunt, completed in 1852. It has been held by the Tate Gallery since 1946, acquired through The Art Fund.
An Athlete Wrestling with a Python was the first of three bronze sculptures produced by the British artist Frederic Leighton. Completed in 1877, the sculpture was a departure for Leighton, and heralded the advent of a new movement, New Sculpture, taking realistic approach to classical models. It has been described as a "sculptural masterpiece" and as "possibly Leighton's greatest contribution to British art". Despite its indebtedness to the Classical tradition, it can be understood as one of the first stirrings of modern sculpture in Britain as well as in Europe. The Athlete was arguably the most influential piece of English sculpture of the 19th century.
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 Wallis's Chatterton, Smarthistory [7] |