Self portrait

Artist: Richard Dadd

Engraver: Drawn and etched by Dadd

1841

Etching

5 7/8 x 4 ½ inches

An early self-portrait of Dadd, showing him as a youthful figure, as yet unaffected (we might speculate) by mental illness. The image forms a sharp contrast to later photographic representations, where the artist is dubbed ‘Mad Dadd’ and displayed as a freak. A version of this image is held in the Dadd Archive of the Bethlem Royal Hospital London; the version shown here is reproduced with permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke

Formatting by Simon Cooke

You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.it