Richard Dadd - The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke - c1855
With the exception of Shakespeare's Oberon and Titania, who appear in the top half of the picture, the figures are drawn entirely from the artist's imagination. The main focus of the painting is the Fairy Feller himself, who raises his axe in readiness to split a large chestnut which will be used to construct Queen Mabs' new fairy carriage. In the centre of the picture the white-bearded patriarch raises his right hand, commanding the woodsman not to strike a blow until the signal is given. Meanwhile the rest of the fairy band looks on in anticipation, anxious to see whether the woodsman will succeed in splitting the nut with one stroke. The magician-like figure of the patriarch wears a triple crown, which seems to be a reference to the Pope. Dadd saw the Pope during a visit to Rome in 1843 and was apparently overcome by an urge to attack him. Although the patriarch may be interpreted as a father figure, the tiny apothecary, brandishing a mortar and pestle in the top right of the picture, is in fact a portrait of the artist's father, Robert Dadd. This group of figures was intended to represent the childhood fortune-telling game 'soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, ploughboy, apothecary, thief'. Unusually for Dadd, a note of prurience is introduced into the picture to the left of the patriarch, where two distorted but voluptuous fairy women are ogled by a satyr. Otherwise, the figures range from tiny gnats and centaurs, driving Queen Mabs in her old carriage, to a large dragonfly playing a trumpet. Frances Fowle - Tate
Size: 2304px × 3200px
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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