1817-1886 was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. Dadd was born at Chatham, Medway in Kent, England, the son of a chemist. His aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 20. With William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry O'Neil and others, he founded The Clique, of which he was generally considered the leading talent. In July 1842, Sir Thomas Phillips, the former mayor of Newport, chose Dadd to accompany him as his draftsman on an expedition through Europe to Greece, Turkey, Palestine and finally Egypt. In November of that year they spent a gruelling two weeks in Palestine, passing from Jerusalem to Jordan and returning across the Engaddi wilderness. Toward the end of December, while travelling up the Nile by boat, Dadd underwent a dramatic personality change, becoming delusional and increasingly violent, and believing himself to be under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. His condition was initially thought to be sunstroke. On his return in the spring of 1843, he was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the countryside village of Cobham, Kent. In August of that year, having become convinced that his father was the Devil in disguise, Dadd killed him with a knife and fled for France. En route to Paris Dadd attempted to kill another tourist with a razor, but was overpowered and was arrested by the police. Dadd confessed to the killing of his father and was returned to England, where he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital (also known as Bedlam). Here and subsequently at the newly created Broadmoor, Dadd was cared for (and encouraged to continue painting) by the likes of Drs William Wood and Sir W. Charles Hood, in an enlightened manner. Which condition he suffered from is unclear, but it is usually understood to be a form of paranoid schizophrenia.He appears to have been genetically predisposed to mental illness; two of his siblings were similarly afflicted, while a third had "a private attendant" for unknown reasons.In the hospital he was allowed to continue to paint and it was here that many of his masterpieces were created, including his most celebrated painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he worked on between 1855 and 1864. Also dating from the 1850s are the thirty-three watercolour drawings titled Sketches to Illustrate the Passions, which include Grief or Sorrow, Love, and Jealousy, as well as Agony-Raving Madness and Murder. Like most of his works these are executed on a small scale and feature protagonists whose eyes are fixed in a peculiar, unfocused stare.  Related Paintings of Richard Dadd :. | Fairy Fellers Master Stroke | The Fairy Feller Master Stroke by Richard Dadd | The Tombs of the Caliphs | The Artist's Halt in the Desert (mk46) | Come unto These Yellow Sands |
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Anthonis Mor
(c. 1517 - 1577) was a Netherlandish portrait painter, much in demand by the courts of Europe. He has also been referred to as Antoon, Anthonius, Anthonis, or Mor van Dashorst, Antonio Moro, Anthony More, etc., but signed most of his portraits as, Anthonis Mor. Mor was born in Utrecht, Netherlands by some estimation between 1516 and 1520. What is known of his early life is that his artistic education commenced under Jan van Scorel. His earliest work is probably a portrait at Stockholm, dated 1538. A group of Knights of St. John, at Utrecht, supposed to have been painted about 1541; a picture of two pilgrims at the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, dated 1544; together with the portrait of an unknown woman, in the Lille gallery, were probably among his earliest works although their authenticity has not been proved. In 1547, he was received as a member of the Venerable Guild of St. Luke at Antwerp, and shortly afterwards (about 1548) he attracted the attention of Cardinal Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, who became his steady patron. Of the portraits executed during the early period of his career as Granvelle's protege, two are especially notable: one of the bishop himself (in the imperial gallery in Vienna), and one of the Duke of Alba, which now belongs to the Hispanic Society of New York. Between 1549 and 1550 Prince Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) traveled around the Netherlands to present himself as the future ruler. Mor painted his portrait in Brussels in 1549. He probably visited Italy (when exactly is not known) where he copied some works by Titian, notably the Danaë.
WIT, Jacob de
Dutch Rococo Era Painter, 1695-1754 Dutch painter, draughtsman, etcher and writer. He was the leading 18th-century Dutch decorative painter, specializing in Rococo ceiling and room decorations and groups of putti painted naturalistically in colour or as imitation reliefs in grisaille. His preparatory drawings for ceiling decorations were collected during his own lifetime, but he also executed independent finished drawings specifically for collectors
Bernardo Daddi
active in Florence 1320-1348 was an early Italian renaissance painter and apprentice of Giotto. He was also influenced by the Sienese art of Lorenzetti. Daddi's birth date remains unknown. He is first mentioned in 1312. He focused on religious motifs and altarpieces. A triptych he painted in 1328 is in the Uffizi, and there are several panels in National Gallery of Art and the Walters Art Gallery. Daddi became the leading painter of Florence during his generation. His last work dates from 1347,