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Sketch to illustrate the Passions: Patriotism
Dadd, Richard, born 1817 - died 1886 - Enlarge image
Sketch to illustrate the Passions: Patriotism
- Object:
Watercolour
- Place of origin:
London, England (made)
- Date:
1857 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Dadd, Richard, born 1817 - died 1886 (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen, ink and watercolour
- Credit Line:
Bequeathed by Forster
- Museum number:
F.59
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F, case WD, shelf 126
Dadd made a series of watercolours illustrating the Passions whilst he was in the Bethlem Hospital in London, where he was confined after murdering his father in 1843. Each of the other watercolours in this series has a moral theme, and is comparable to a literary illustration. Patriotism is exceptional; it was the last in the series, and the composition seems to have been influenced by C.R. Leslie's painting Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman (an illustration to Lawrence Sterne's book Tristam Shandy). The veterans in Dadd's drawing are clearly meant to be 18th century rather than contemporary. They are studying a map (which has been densely inscribed) of an imaginary place which Dadd has named Olabolika. The places on the map are named after human qualities, or are bleakly amusing: for example, he includes a 'Lunatic Asylum called Lostwithal'. This drawing is a complex and self-consciously humorous work in which Dadd refers obliquely to his own situation and to ideas - literary and visual - which had influenced him, or with which he felt some sympathy or personal indentification.
