Sketch to Illustrate the Passions: Suspense or Expectation
Date:
1855
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor, gray ink, and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 14 1/8 x 10 1/4 inches (35.9 x 26 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in black ink, lower left: "-Sketch to illustrate the Passions. Suspense. or Expectation."; in black ink, lower left: "by. Richard Dadd. Bethlehem Hospital London _ June 2nd 1855. __ ."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)Richard Dadd Exhibition (Davis & Langdale Co., Inc., 1994-05-03 - 1994-06-03)Pleasures and Pastimes (Yale Center for British Art, 1990-02-21 - 1990-04-29)
Publications:
Elisabeth Fairman, Pleasures and pastimes, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 1990, p. 32, no. 241, DA485 F25 1990 (YCBA)Richard Dadd : a loan exhibition, Davis & Langdale Co., Inc., New York, 1994, p. 11, no. 16, Vertical File V0271 (YCBA)Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 194-96, no. 86, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
In 1843 Richard Dadd suffered a mental breakdown that led him to murder his father. For the rest of his life he was incarcerated, first in Bethlem Hospital and from 1864 in the newly opened Broadmoor “criminal lunatic asylum.” Allowed the use of brushes and paints, Dadd produced a body of extraordinary and unsettling paintings and drawings. This watercolor of a group of children watching a boy prepare to annihilate a doll belongs to a major series titled Sketches to Illustrate the Passions that Dadd began in 1853 and worked on for the next few years. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)