The Georgian medicine vendor as physician: William Brodum

Wellcome Library no. 20131i

A watercolour in the Wellcome Library (left) shows an interior with three figures.  In the centre a plump, self-satisfied looking man  looks down with approval at the work of the second figure, on the right, who is Death himself. Death is a tall and physically active skeleton wearing a tie-wig: he vigorously stirs a pestle in a mortar to grind up ingredients for medicines. Some pharmaceutical vessels are shown on the floor around them, and the shelves in the background are full of apothecary's glassware.  The third figure is a woman patient who sits in front of the fireplace on the left, gripped by illness.

The obvious interpretation is that the man is an apothecary (pharmacist), hence the glassware on the shelves of his house. Death is the apothecary's business partner, making up medicines with lethal side-effects: clearly the woman is going to die as a result of taking the harmful medicine. Right?

No, not exactly.  If the setting is an apothecary's shop, the sick woman wearing night-clothes would be sitting in front of the fire in the pharmacist's establishment, not in her own home. To explain that improbability, one would have to assume that she is meant to be a member of his household -- which would rather reduce the applicability of the joke and take the edge off the humour. As the watercolour is attributed to the ever-humorous Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), that would be a problem.

A possible clue to the subject came to light in January 2012 when Christie's in New York offered at auction another watercolour version of the same composition, inscribed in what looks like Rowlandson's hand "Dr Brodum and his assistant at work pro publico bono". [1] So who was Dr Brodum?

Wellcome Library no. 1397i

William Brodum (right) was one of several members of the Georgian medical fringe who were portrayed by caricaturists. Samuel Phillips Eady, also portrayed by Rowlandson and discussed in this blog-post, was another who could be so described. Unlike Eady, Brodum is dignified by an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), where evidence is cited that he was a Danish Jew, born Issachar Cohen in Copenhagen around 1767. [2] He came to England around 1787 to work for another medicine vendor (Dr Bossy), using the name William Brodum. He obtained an Aberdeen M.D. degree in 1791, and from his house at 9 Albion Street, Blackfriars Road, London, launched his own career as a medicine vendor, specializing in two product lines: "Doctor Brodum's Botanical Syrup for the cure of scorbutic, leprous and scrofulous complaints" and "Doctor Brodum's Nervous Cordial for the cure of consumptive, nervous and debilitated constitutions, and people who have been in hot countries". His advertising for these products included a lot of code words that were euphemisms for syphilis (debility, leprosy, nervous weakness etc.), and the same insinuation was gracefully made in the title and body of a two-volume publication, Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth (1795), dedicated to King George III, whose favour he received. A miniature portrait of him around this time was published in an engraving by Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel (1757–1806), a member of the Jewish community in Exeter (above).

Brodum was therefore both a commercial medicine vendor and a doctor of medicine. Since the two professions were theoretically distinct and incompatible, problems could arise with the regulatory bodies, one of which was the Royal College of Physicians of London. In practice, this combination was not unusual at the time: Sir Hans Sloane, Dr Robert James, and Dr Richard Mead were among physicians associated with proprietary medicines (chocolate in Sloane's case), a fact which led one commentator to ask "Have not members of the College dined at Dr Brodum's table?". [3] In any case, Brodum was summoned before the College and told he could not accept consultation fees and should remove from his house the brass plate which described him as “Dr Brodum”. Brodum refused to accept this ruling, and the academic authorities in Aberdeen did not appreciate the College’s scorn for the value of their doctorate. Brodum continued to visit patients for an advertised cost of 5 guineas a week, while outpatients could visit him at his house every Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. [4]

Whether by accident or design,the goings-on in Rowlandson's watercolour fit this situation perfectly. If the man is meant to be identified with Brodum -- he died in 1824 and Rowlandson in 1827 -- we need not ask whether it shows a medicine vendor or a physician. Brodum and Death together make up the medicines at Brodum's pharmaceutical laboratory in Southwark, while the patient in the background, huddled in front of her own fireplace, represents the use to which the medicine will be put in Brodum's medical practice.

[1] Christie's, Old Master and early British drawings and watercolors, New York, Rockefeller Plaza, 26 January 2012, lot 38

[2] Edgar Samuel, 'Brodum, William (fl. 1767–1824)', Oxford dictionary of national biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008. Brodum wrote that he was "born and bred" in the same country as the Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, in north Germany (Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth, 1795, vol. 1, fol. A2r)

[3] Roy Porter, Health for sale, Manchester 1989, p. 9

[4] William Brodum, Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth, 1795, pp. 153-155

Dr Eady--from Soho to Beverly Hills

Watercolour by Thomas Rowlandson, ca. 1825. Wellcome Library no. 726498i

The Wellcome Library in London has acquired a watercolour by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827). Yes, without apology, yet another work by Rowlandson has been added to the large number of prints and drawings by him already in the Wellcome Library.



This one is signed by Rowlandson and inscribed "Dr Eady and his patients" (click on image above for larger view). The bespectacled Dr Eady is having a good look at the prominently exposed breasts of the woman in front of him, while another woman in the background pours liquor from a bottle into a glass, with an expression suggesting that she has drunk enough already. So who was Dr Eady, and who were these women patients of his?



Eady is not in the Oxford dictionary of national biography, and most of what we know about him is derived from an advertising pamphlet (left) which he issued touting his treatment for "those who are unhappily afflicted with diseases of the generative system", meaning syphilis. He is named as Samuel Phillips Eady and writes from 38 Dean Street, Soho. He agrees with the use of mercury treatment, but not indiscriminately: its effectiveness depends on how it is used. His literary style is high-flown: a quotation from the Roman poet Horace stands at the beginning of the text, there is much reference to ancient and learned authorities, and an allegorical woodcut on the front cover shows Eady dispersing the clouds of Prejudice and triumphing over Calumny and Detraction. It is a characteristic puffing pamphlet issued by a quackdoctor or commercial medicine vendor in late Georgian London.



A caricature etching from 1821 purporting to be by "Dr ED" (Eady) but probably by George Cruikshank shows a man with two prostitutes. "Dr to Mrs Wood" is the name on the long bill on the right. Mrs ("Mother") Wood was apparently a brothel-owner and supplier of the two women shown in the etching. The goods supplied by the doctor are piled up on the table: they include a good deal of liquor and a statue of Mercury, representing mercury treatment for syphilis. (Above right: detail of 'The commercial dandy & his sleeping partners', 1821, British Museum Catalogue of satires no. 14273; image from the British Museum online catalogue).



Eady is portrayed in a second caricature by George Cruikshank, an aquatint dated 1824 (above). [1] This shows, on the left seen from behind, Richard Martin, the campaigner against cruelty to animals and originator of one of the earliest laws on that subject, named after him "Martin's Act". He is bringing a parish constable in to a room to arrest two miscreants who are committing cruelty to animals. The miscreants, seated at table, are Dr William Kitchiner (an eccentric eye-doctor, musician and gastronome who lived in Warren Street) and our friend Dr Eady, and they are committing the crime of causing cruelty to oysters by eating them alive: this was a notorious reductio ad absurdum example used by opponents of Martin's Bill. Eady, wearing a plaid greatcoat (image left), appears here a few years younger than the man depicted by Rowlandson, though the basic physiognomy is the same in both portraits.



There are further comments on Dr Eady in a series of articles entitled 'Annals of quackery', in The medical adviser which were brought together by our late colleague at the Wellcome Library, John Symons. The first ('Eady the wall-chalker', 1823-1824, 1: 40-42) states that he had previously been a haberdasher, and refers to him as a dealer in threads and thimbles. The second (ibid., pp. 249-250) is a general attack on his medical pretensions. The third ('Caution to the public. Eady's escape from St Luke's', 1824, 2: 77-79) avers that Eady was involved in litigation in the King's Bench which disturbed the balance of his mind, as a result of which he was restrained in St Luke's lunatic asylum in Old Street, London. However it is not completely clear whether this is reportage, satire, or fantasy.



Several pieces of new evidence about him were published in 2010 by the contributor to a numismatic website. [2] First, Eady issued metal tokens advertising his name and his cures: several of these metal pieces exist today. Second, a comic song about him was recorded in 1826, including these verses:

Doctor Eady!



For every ill he had a pill, a powder or bolus,

And patients plenty flock’d around and never left him solus;

He gave advice for nothing,

And to prove he was not greedy,

He charged only for physic

- what a generous Doctor Eady!



Old Galen's rules he left for fools,

He had no time for study,

Reading tries the best of eyes,

And makes men’s brains more muddy,



His pills he tried on patients,

That is if they were not needy,

Th’ regulars either kill or cure,

And so did Doctor Eady.



Young men would go, all in a glow,

And to him make confessions,

Sad relate how hard their fate,

Thro' youthful indiscretions;



With kind commiseration then he'd vow to cure them speedy,

For for promises of cure there was none like Doctor Eady.

Thirdly he was recorded in 1821 as advertising his services by chalking his name on walls all over London, to such an extent that, according to one witness, "it is scarcely possible to travel ten miles round the metropolis without meeting with his name, which naturally excites enquiry into the object and pretensions of the chalked up Hero."



From these scraps of evidence we deduce that Dr Eady was a bon viveur who practised as a physician (probably without paper qualifications) in London during the reign of King George IV (1820-1830). It is likely that he was associated with William Kitchiner and others in popularising healthy ways of life and deprecating the over-use of potentially toxic drugs. He also acted as a syphilis expert in Soho, where his patients included prostitutes, notably those under the protection of Mother Wood. He advertised his services lavishly, provoking opposition from rivals.



The Rowlandson watercolour describes his louche character and vividly illustrates his specialisation as a Soho pox-doctor. Is one of the two women in Rowlandson's watercolour Mrs Wood? A documented portrait of her does not seem to be available from the obvious places, but if Cruikshank knew of Eady's association with Wood, presumably Rowlandson would have known as well. One of the articles in The medical adviser mentions that Eady was visited in St Luke's by "Mrs Woods of Lisle Street": Lisle street is a street in Soho that is very close to Dean Street, and this Mrs Woods is presumably the same as Mrs Wood the brothel-keeper.





It must have been in London that Rowlandson painted the watercolour in the 1820s, and it was in London also that the Wellcome Library acquired it in 2010, but between those two dates the watercolour had travelled nearly half way round the Earth. It has on the reverse two inscriptions recording its previous owner. One gives his name and address: Stephen Longstreet, of 610 N. Elm Drive, Beverly Hills, Calif. The other gives his name and the date on which he acquired it: 24 April 1954 (above).



Stephen Longstreet (1907-2002: image left) was a versatile American who was himself a watercolour artist. His original name was Chauncey Weiner [or Wiener]-Langstrasse. He worked as a cartoonist and illustrator under the name Henri, and, with the encouragement of William Faulkner, became a writer as well. In 1940 his publisher, Bennet Cerf of Random House, suggested he use the pen-name Longstreet: as Stephen Longstreet he was the writer of numerous novels, television programmes, movies, books on jazz, and ghosted autobiographies such as that of Hoagy Carmichael.







Longstreet was also a prolific watercolour artist on various themes, including jazz, show business, political cartoons, Hollywood artistes such as Greta Garbo, and a British portrait-subject: Winston Churchill (right). Longstreet's ownership of Thomas Rowlandson's watercolour of Dr Eady, hanging for many years in his Beverly Hills residence, united one watercolourist with another across a continent, an ocean, and more than a century.



[1] William Schupbach, 'Iconography of Dr William Kitchiner (1775?-1827)', Medical history, 1984, 28: 202-209. Online here.

[2] 'Dr. Samuel Phillips Eady - farthing token', Numismatic Society 12 November 2010. Online here.



Images of Stephen Longstreet and his works are reproduced by kind permission of Larry and Lisa Hupman.

Visiting the stigmatics of the South Tyrol - II. Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Coloured engraving, ca 1840.
Wellcome Library no. 260i

The previous posting introduced the two stigmatics of the South Tyrol and described the visit of T.W. Allies and his two companions to one of them, Maria Domenica Lazzari, in July 1847. Allies's letter concludes with these observations. [1]

"The points in her case which are beyond and contrary to nature are these :
1st. For thirteen years she has neither eaten nor drunken, except that very small portion of the Host which she receives once or twice weekly.
2d. On the hands and feet, inside and outside, she bears the wounds of our Lord; both sides run with blood; whether the wounds go through is not known; and on the left side is a wound which runs also.
3d. She has on the brow, as I saw and have described, and I believe all round the head, the mark of the crown of thorns; a series of punctures, and a red line as if of something pressing on the head.
4th. All these wounds run with blood at present, and during thirteen years have done the like, regularly, and at an early hour on Friday, and on that day alone.

Combining the first and fourth fact, we get a phenomenon which sets at utter defiance all physical science, and which seems to me a direct exertion of Almighty power, and of that alone. "Medical men," said Signor Yoris, "have been in abundance to see her, and have studied her case; but no one has furnished the least solution of it." He assured me he had seen the wounds on her feet a hundred times, and that the blood flowed upwards towards the toes, as we saw it did on the nose. Since for the last two years she has been contracted and drawn up by her disease the feet cannot be seen. She has refused to allow any man to see the wound on the side, as it did not require to be medically treated; but offered that any number of women, of her own village, or the wives of medical men, might see it. She is a good deal emaciated, but not so much as I have seen in other cases. Nothing can be more simple and natural than her manner and that of her sister. Their cottage is open at all times. Domenica may be closely seen, all but touched and handled. Indeed around that couch one treads instinctively with reverence; the image of the Woe surpassing all woes is too plainly marked, for the truth of what one sees not to sink indelibly on the mind. No eye witness, I will venture to say, will ever receive the notion of anything like deceit."

Allies then proceeds (pp. 136-140) with an account of his party's visit to Maria von Moehrl.

Maria von Moehrl. Watercolour by L. Giuditti after L.G. de Ségur, 1846.

Wellcome Library no. 708243i

"VISIT TO L'ESTATICA
We returned to Neumarkt on Friday, and on Saturday morning, July 31st, walked nine miles to Caldaro, to see the other great wonder of the Tyrol, Maria Mörl, called the Estatica. On arriving, we presented the Bishop of Trent's letter to the dean, and in about an hour, were conducted to the Franciscan convent; from this one of the friars conducted us to the monastery, within the enclosure of which, but only as a lodger, Maria Mörl has withdrawn.

The main points in her history are these. She was born in October, 1812; she lived from her earliest years a life of great piety; about the age of eighteen, in the year 1830, she suffered violent attacks of sickness, in which medical aid seemed to be of no service. At this time she began, after receiving the Holy Communion, to fall into trances, which were at first of short duration, and scarcely remarked by her family. On the Feast of the Purification, 1832, however, she fell after communicating into an ecstacy lasting twenty-six hours, and was only recalled by the order of her confessor. In June, 1832, the state of ecstacy returned every day; in August of the year 1833 it became habitual. Her ordinary and habitual position is kneeling on her bed, with her hands joined under the chin, her eyes wide open, and intently fixed on some object; in which state she takes no notice of any one present, and can only be recalled by her confessor charging her on her vow of obedience.

But I may now as well describe what we saw. In a few minutes the friar had taken us to the garden door of the monastery; we entered a passage where he left us for a short time, and returning, told us to open a door which led into a bedroom; I opened another door, and found myself, before I expected, in the presence of the most unearthly vision I ever beheld. In a corner of a sufficiently large room, in which the full light of day was tempered down by the blinds being closed, Maria Mörl was on her knees on her bed. Dressed entirely in white, her dark hair came down on both sides to her waist; her eyes were fixed intently upwards, her hands joined in adoration and' pressing her chin. She took not the slightest notice of our entrance, nor seemed to be aware of our presence at all; her position was considerably thrown forward, and leaning on one side; one in which, on a soft bed especially, it must have been very difficult, if possible, to remain a minute.

We gazed at her intently the whole time we were allowed to remain, about six minutes. I could see a slight trembling of the eye, and heaving of the frame, and heard one or two throbs, but otherwise it would have seemed a statue, rather than anything living. Her expression was extremely beautiful and full of devotion. Long before we were content to go, the friar intimated his impatience. I asked him to cause her to pass out of her ecstacy, and recline on the bed. He went near to her and spoke a few words in a very low tone; upon which after a slight pause, she slid, in an indescribable manner, down from her kneeling position, her hands remaining closed together, and her eyes wide open, and her knees bent under her, how I cannot imagine.

She is said to spring up again into her former position, as often as her state of ecstacy comes upon her, without disjoining her hands; and this we should have liked to see, but the friar was urgent that we should leave, and we accordingly obeyed. The sleeves she wore round her wrists prevented our being able to see whether the stigmata were visible, which she bears on her hands and on her feet. The Bishop of Trent afterwards told me we should have asked the confessor to order her to show us the former. These were first observed in 1834.

Now, though what we saw bears out the accounts given of the Estatica so far as it went, yet I must admit that we did not leave her with that full satisfaction we had felt in the case of the Addolorata. Maria Mörl's state in its very nature does not admit the bystander to such perfect proof as that of Domenica Lazzari. Had we remained half an hour or an hour instead of six minutes, it must still have been a matter of faith to us how long these ecstacies continue, and how often they recur. None but those who live daily with her can be aware of all her case. I can only say that what we saw was very strange and very striking, and when the Bishop of Trent informs us, as he did, a few hours ago, that these trances continue four or five hours together, I must entirely believe it. He had seen the stigmata on her hands, and she had rendered him, as her superior, the same obedience which she gives to her confessor.

If I may venture to draw any conclusion from what I have seen, it is, that it appears to be a design of God, by means of these two young persons, to impress on an age of especial scepticism and unbelief in spiritual agency such tokens of our Lord's Passion, as no candid observer can fail to recognise. Neither of these cases can be brought under the ordinary laws of nature; both seem to bear witness in a different, but perhaps equally wonderful manner, to the glory of God as reflected from the Passion of His Son on the members of His Body.
Ever yours, T. W. ALLIES."

There is no conclusion about Maria von Moehrl comparable to Allies's methodological remarks about Maria Domenica Lazzari. She appeared less spectacular than Lazzari, her feature being her ability, when in a trance, to kneel at an angle without keeling over – well captured in the watercolour.

What are we to make of these two cases?

The sceptic will see them as, at best, self-harming anorexic young women, and at worst cases of physical and psychological abuse exploited by fraud. At the other extreme is the Earl of Shrewsbury who wrote "A pious fraud so ably conducted would be a greater miracle than those which we see before us". [2]

One point that the visitors made unwittingly is that the stigmatics, whatever may the cause of their condition, had significant economic importance for their communities. The Earl of Shrewsbury for example made his visit in May 1841 with the Countess and six other people in his party, all of whom needed food and lodging. In his letter dated Munich 27 May 1841 he mentions that a Reverend Mr Swarbrick from England had visited them the previous summer; Prince Lichnowsy had visited in 1839; Lord and Lady Dormer (Joseph Thaddeus Dormer, 11th Baron Dormer of Wyng, was or had been an officer in the Austrian Army) had visited; Monsieur de la Bouillerie had visited; a German physician had visited; and Johann Joseph von Görres (1776-1848), the prominent author then writing his book Die christliche Mystik (1836-1842), had visited Moehrl in 1834 but had not been able to get to Lazzari. The visiting group described in Allies's book consisted of at least five people: the three Englishmen, Manzoni's step-son Stefano Stampa, and the latter's servant; Stampa was on his second or third visit. There seems to have been a constant flow of visitors, many of them affluent.

Shrewsbury illustrated his letter with two etchings of the stigmatics by the painter and Catholic convert John Rogers Herbert (1810–1890), calling it "the accompanying print which is copied from one sold at Capriana." So prints of Lazzari were also on sale for visitors to buy, and from its similarity to Herbert's copy it is clear that a print in the Wellcome Library (image at top) is one of them. The brand-names which were used to refer to the stigmatics – L'Addolorata and L'Estatica – also follows best practice in marketing. Therefore, whatever else it might be, stigmatisation can also be the cause of a flourishing tourist business.

However, given that the two watercolours of Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl which are published here came from Monseigneur de Ségur, it is likely that they came into being not for commercial reasons but for propagation of the faith. Thereafter they descended in the Polish noble family, settled in Belarus, of Dr Andrew Ciechanowiecki F.S.A. They passed from him to the collection of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan at Malplaquet House, and in 2010 to the Wellcome Library. They are published here for the first time in this Easter week of 2011.

[1] T.W. Allies, Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with letters from Italy in 1847, of things and persons concerning the church and education, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849, pp. 134-140. A letter follows covering the same ground from John H. Wynne, 1 August 1847, pp. 140-150, of which 143-150 concern the stigmatics, followed by a third letter from J.H. Pollen, 1 August 1847, pp. 150-158. Also on Lazzari: Guido Sommavilla, Maria Domenica Lazzeri: una mistica in Val di Fiemme, Cinisello Balsamo (Milano): San Paolo, 1996 (Protagonisti (Edizioni paoline), 26) (not seen).
[2] Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps Esq. descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro and the Addolorata of Capriana, London: Charles Dolman, 1841, p. 36

Visiting the stigmatics of the South Tyrol - I. Maria Domenica Lazzari

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Detail of Wellcome Library no. 708242i

Two watercolours and an engraving in the Wellcome Library show two remarkable people in what is now the the northernmost province of Italy, the South Tyrol (Bolzano-Alto Adige). In the 1840s there was a steady flow of foreign tourists and pilgrims to the idyllic valleys of that region solely to visit two women who were said to have received spontaneously bleeding wounds (stigmata) on their hands, feet, or head like those caused to Jesus Christ when he was nailed to the cross and forced to wear the crown of thorns. One of the two women (shown above) was Maria Domenica Lazzari (sometimes spelled Lazzeri), and the other was Maria von Moehrl (also called Mörl). The former was known as L'Addolorata (the woman of pain), the latter as L'Estatica (the woman of ecstasy), for reasons which will become clear.

A few words on the topic of stigmatism. From the thirteenth century to the twentieth century there are records of more than 300 cases. [1] Some are relatively recent: they include the English stigmatics Ethel Chapman (1921-1980) and Jane Hunt (b. 1957); the American Cloretta Robinson of West Oakland, California (b. 1962); and the Italian Padre Pio da Pietrelcina (1887-1968). They are overwhelmingly female: among the cases studied by Imbert-Goubeyre were 280 women and 41 men.

No authoritative explanation of the phenomenon has been proposed. A rigorous and sophisticated study by René Biot [2] concluded that in many cases fraud had not been detected, that stigmatism was a "neuropathic phenomenon", that each case was different and that it was ultimately an enigma. A later study by Ian Wilson [3] re-examined the cases and proposed that the stigmata may be generated in a rare confluence of four personal traits: in "hysterical" people (1), under stress (2), with strong and overt religious passions (3) and with multiple personality disorder (4), the conditions were present for stigmata to be self-induced by hypnotic suggestion. Various further approaches are found in a volume of essays that appeared in 2001. [4] There is a vast earlier literature, much of it occasioned by Therese Neumann (1898-1962), the controversial (that is, even more controversial than most stigmatics) Bavarian. Many of them combined stigmata with seeingly impossible acts of fasting, such as eating nothing for years.

The two with whom we are concerned here are portrayed in two watercolours made in Rome by Luigi Gonzaga Giuditti. He was copying watercolours made in the Alto Adige on 29 and 30 August 1846, by or for Louis Gaston de Ségur (1820-1881). De Ségur was a Catholic apologist and prolific writer against Protestantism and Freemasonry. Let us look first at Maria Domenica Lazzari, and compare Monseigneur De Ségur's portrayal with the accounts of some of her other distinguished visitors.

Maria Domenica Lazzari, L'Addolorata, lived in the village of Capriana (left).
There her visitors included, in addition to Louis Gaston de Ségur, John Talbot, sixteenth earl of Shrewsbury (1791–1852), one of the leading Roman Catholic apologists in England, patron of the Gothic revival and builder of the mansion in Staffordshire now known as Alton Towers. He described her (and Maria von Moehrl) in a letter which he published as a pamphlet in 1841. [5] Then, during the summer of 1847, three Oxford-educated young men, Thomas William Allies, the rector of Launton, Oxfordshire, and his friends J.H. Pollen and J.H. Wynne, visited Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl as part of their grand tour of France and Italy. In 1849 they published a volume of letters from each of the three travellers describing some of the things they had seen. As Wilson says (p. 33), "The Englishmen's observations are particularly valuable for their cautious, objective and scientific approach." Let us therefore look at them.

The letter from T.W. Allies is typical of the three letters describing the visit of the three Englishmen. [6] It starts in Milan with their visit to the novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), author of I Promessi Sposi, to whom they had brought a letter of introduction.

"Milan, July 23. 1847.

MY DEAR —.
We took our letter to Manzoni last night, and found him sitting, after dinner, with Madame. Considering that he lives very retired, we may think ourselves three fortunate birds of passage to have had an hour's conversation with the author of the Promessi Sposi. […] I inquired if he could tell us anything about the Estatica and Addolorata, who are not far from Trent, and whom we wish to see. He replied that one person of his acquaintance who had seen the Addolorata was profoundly struck, and quite convinced of the reality of her state. On further conversation, it turned out that this person was no other than his wife's son by a former marriage, who was at this moment gone on a second visit to the Addolorata with a physician, for the purpose of taking an accurate account of her state. He is to return on Monday, and then we hope to hear his report. […]

We intend to go on towards Venice on Tuesday; we think of stopping at Verona, and going north into the Tyrol, to see the Addolorata, I do no not know if you have heard of her. She has now been many years subsisting almost without nourishment, having on her hands, feet, and side the marks of our Saviour's wounds, and on her head a series of punctures representing the Crown of Thorns. Blood drops from all of these on Friday. I spoke with an eye-witness of this at Paris. The thing seems marvellous enough to go a hundred miles out of one's way to see it. Yours very sincerely, T. W. ALLIES.

Account of a Visit to the Addolorata and Estatica, in the Tyrol
Trent, August 1. 1847. MY DEAR — . Since I last wrote to you, I have seen two sights more remarkable than any that ever fell under my own observation before, and than any that are likely to fall again. I mean to give you as short an account of them as will convey a real notion of them.

Maria Domenica Lazzari, daughter of a poor miller now dead, lives in the wild Alpine village of Capriana, in the Italian Tyrol, which we had a walk of four hours through the mountains to reach. She was born March 16. 1815, and up to the year 1833 lived the ordinary life of a peasant, blameless and religious, but in no respect otherwise remarkable. In August, 1833, she had an illness, not in the first instance of an extraordinary nature; but it took the form of an intermittent fever, confining her completely to her bed, and finally contracting the nerves of her hands and feet, so as to cripple them. On the 10th of January, 1834, she received on her hands, feet, and left side, the marks of our Lord's five wounds; the first appearance of these was a gradual reddening of the various points beneath the skin; this was strongly marked on a Thursday, and on the following day the wounds were open, blood flowed, and since that time they have never undergone any material change. Three weeks afterwards her family found her in the morning with a handkerchief covering her face, in a state of great delight, a sort of trance; on removing the handkerchief, letters were found on it marked in blood, and Domenica's brow had a complete impression of the Crown of Thorns, in a line of small punctures, about a quarter of an inch apart, from which the blood was flowing freshly. They asked her who had torn her so (chi l'aveva così pettinata?) she replied, " A very fair lady had come in the night and adorned her."

On the 10th of April, 1834, she took a little water with a morsel of bread steeped in it; from that day to this she has taken no nourishment whatever, save the Holy Sacrament, which she receives weekly once or twice, in the smallest possible quantity. Some years ago, when the priest had given her the Host, sudden convulsions came on, and she was unable to swallow It; the priest tried repeatedly to withdraw It, but in vain, the convulsions returning as often as he attempted it, and so It remained forty days, when It was at last removed untouched. We were assured of this by the Prince-Bishop of Trent.

From the time that she first received the stigmata in January, 1834, to the present time, the wounds have bled every Friday with a loss of from one to two ounces of blood, beginning early in the morning, and on Friday only; the quantity of blood which now flows is less than it used to be. The above information we received chiefly from Signor Yoris, a surgeon of Cavalese, the chief village of the district in which Capriana lies. We carried him a letter from Signor S. Stampa, son-in-law of Manzoni, whom we met at Milan last Sunday, and who had just returned from a visit to Domenica, exactly a week before our own. He appeared quite overwhelmed at what he had seen, and gave us an exact account, which our own eyes subsequently verified.

We reached Cavalese from Neumarkt on Thursday, having taken especial care so to time our visit that we might see Domenica first on Thursday evening and then on Friday morning, so as to be able to observe that marvellous flow of blood which is said to take place on Friday. Signor Yoris most obligingly offered to accompany us; accordingly we left Cavalese shortly after one o'clock on Thursday, and reached Capriana by a wild road through a mountainous valley, in four hours.

As we got near the place Signor Yoris said, "I will tell you a curious instance of Domenica's acuteness of hearing. My wife and I were going once to visit her; when we were eighty or a hundred yards from her house, I whispered to my wife to go quietly, that we might take her by surprise. We did so accordingly, but much to our astonishment she received us with a smile, saying that she had not been taken by surprise, and alluding to the very words I had used." He showed us the spot where this had occurred, and it was certainly an acuteness of sense far beyond anything I can conceive possible.

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Watercolour by L. Giuditti after L.G. de Ségur, 1846. Wellcome Library no. 708242i

We went straight to Domenica's cottage, and knocked at the door. Her sister was out, but in a few minutes she came from a cottage a little below, and let us in. At the inner end of a low room near the wall, in a bed hardly larger than a crib, Domenica lay crouched up, the hands closely clasped over the breast, the head a little raised, the legs gathered up nearly under her, in a way the bed clothes did not allow us to see. About three quarters of an inch under the roots of the hair a straight line is drawn all round the forehead, dotted with small punctures a quarter of an inch apart; above this the flesh is of the natural colour, perfectly clear and free from blood; below the face is covered down to the bottom of the nose, and the cheeks to the same extent, with a dry crust or mask of blood. Her breast heaved with a sort of convulsion, and her teeth chattered. On the outside of both hands, as they lie clasped together, in a line with the second finger, about an inch from the knuckle, is a hard scar, of dark-colour, rising above the flesh, half an inch in length, by about three-eighths of an inch in width; round these the skin slightly reddened, but quite free from blood. From the position of the hands it is not possible to see well inside, but stooping down on the right of her bed I could almost see an incision answering to the outward one, and apparently deeper. I leant over her head, within a foot of the Corona on the forehead, and closely observed the wounds. She looked at us very fixedly, but hardly spoke. We heard her only cry "Dio mio" several times when her pains were bad. She seemed to enter into Signor Yoris's conversation, smiled repeatedly, and bent her head. But it was an effort to her to attend, and at times the eyes closed and she became insensible.

By far the most striking point in her appearance this evening was that dry mask of blood descending so regularly from the punctured line round the forehead; for it must be remarked that the blood has flowed in a straight line all down the face, as if she were erect, not as it would naturally flow from the position in which she was lying, that is, off the middle to the sides of the face. And what is strangest of all, there is a space all round the face, from the forehead down to the jaw, by the ears, quite free from blood, and of the natural colour : which is just that part to which the blood, as she lies, ought most to run.

After about three-quarters of an hour we took leave, intending to return the first thing in the morning. Don Michele Santuari, the parish priest, on whom we called, was out; he returned our visit for a minute or two, very early the next morning, but was going to his brother's again.

Friday evening, July 30th [1847].
When we visited Domenica at half-past five this morning, the change was very remarkable. The hard scars on the outside of her hands had sunk to the level of the flesh, and become raw and fresh running wounds, but without indentation, from which there was a streak of blood running a finger's length, not perpendicularly, but down the middle of the wrist. The wound inside the left hand seemed on the contrary deep and furrowed, much blood had flowed, and the hand seemed mangled; the wound of the right hand inside could not be seen. The punctures round the forehead had been bleeding, and were open, so that the mask of blood was thicker, and very terrible to look at. The darkest place of all was the tip of the nose, a spot, which, as she was lying, the blood in its natural course could not reach at all. It must be observed again, that the blood flows as it would flow if she were suspended, and not recumbent.

The sight is so fearful that a person of weak nerves would very probably be overcome by it; indeed, Signor Stampa and his servant were both obliged to leave the room. While we were there Domenica's sister, who lives alone with her, stood at the head of her crib with her hands under her head, occasionally raising her. We fanned her alternately with a large feathered fan, which alone seemed to relieve her; for she is in a continual fever, and her window remains open day and night, summer and winter, in the severest cold. She seemed better this morning, and more able to speak, and at intervals did speak several times. I asked her to pray for us, she replied, "Questo farò ben volentieri. Prega che l'Inghilterra sia tutta Cattolica, che non ci sia che una religione, perchè adesso ci sono molte." [7] She replied, I believe in the very words of the Catechism, "Si; non vi é che una sola religione Cattolica Romana; fuori di questa non si deve aver speranza." [8] She observed, that other English had asked the same thing of her. She has light and sparkling grey eyes, which she fixed repeatedly on us, looking at us severally with great interest. We told her that the Bishop of Trent had requested us to call on him, and give him a report of her; and asked her if she had any thing to say. She replied, "Tell him that I desire his benediction, and that I resign myself in every thing to the will of God and that of the bishop. Ask him to intercede for me with the Bishop of all." I said, " Piu si patisce qui, piu si gode dopo." She replied, "Si : si deve sperarlo." [9] Before we left, W— repeated, "You will pray for us," she bowed her head; "and for all England:" she replied, "Quanto io posso.[As much as I can]" After nearly an hour's stay we took leave, hoping that we might all meet in Paradise. There is an altar in her room, at which Mass is celebrated once a week, and many small pictures of saints. Every thing betokens the greatest poverty.

It is most hard to realise such a life as Domenica's continued during thirteen years. The impression left on my mind as to her state is that of one who suffers with the utmost resignation a wonderful and inexplicable disease, on which the tokens of our Saviour's Passion are miraculously and most awfully impressed."

The letter ends (p. 140) with this postscript:
"P.S. Maria Domenica Lazzari died about Easter, 1848, aged thirty-three years."

The description of Maria von Moehrl follows in the next instalment.

[1] Christoph Daxelmüller, "Süsse Nägel der Passion": Die Geschichte der Selbstkreuzigung von Franz von Assisi bis heute, Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2001, p. 97
[2] René Biot, L'énigme des stigmatisés, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1955
[3] Ian Wilson, The bleeding mind: an investigation into the mysterious phenomenon of stigmata, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988
[4] Dominique de Courcelles (ed.), Stigmates, Paris: Editions de l'Herne, 2001 (Les cahiers de l'Herne)
[5] Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps Esq. descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro and the Addolorata of Capriana, London: Charles Dolman, 1841
[6] T.W. Allies, Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with letters from Italy in 1847, of things and persons concerning the church and education, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849, pp. 122-136. Available in PDF at http://www.archive.org/details/ra545025900alliuoft , but the OCR "Full text" offered there is corrupt.
[7] "That I shall do gladly. Pray that England should be completely Catholic, that there should be one religion only there, because now there are many."
[8] "Yes, there is one sole Roman Catholic religion, outside this one can have no hope."
[9] "The more one suffers here, the more one has joy thereafter". "Yes, one must hope."

Credit: view of Capriana by Marco Vanzo from www.mvanzo.it

Inner visions of a twilight world

As already noted here, the exhibition Watercolour at Tate Britain (until 21 August 2011) has a section on Watercolour and War, in which a spectacularly gruesome painting by Charles Bell (1815) from the RAMC Muniments Collection is the earliest exhibit, on loan from the Wellcome Library.

After that, anyone in search of less violent subjects can find them in the next room, devoted to Inner vision. Here the works exhibited show how visionary artists, who seek to capture the fleeting figures which haunt their own imagination, have turned to watercolour for its speed of execution and variety of effects. William Blake, Simeon Solomon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones (with the largest watercolour in the exhibition), Frederick Cayley Robinson, and the Welsh poet David Jones are among the artists whose unearthly, hallucinatory paintings inhabit this gallery. Quieter and more contemplative, but no less intense.

Gouache by Robert Bateman. Wellcome Library no. 44691i.

Among them is another work on loan from the Wellcome Library: a gouache painting of witches plucking mandrakes by Robert Bateman (1842-1922). Botanist, landscape gardener and Italian scholar, Bateman was the leader of a group of British Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic painters who appeared in the 1860s under the auspices of the Dudley Gallery in London. His taste for exotic flora was inherited from his father James Bateman (1812–1897), the orchid-maniac who founded the gardens of Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire, now open to the public in the care of the National Trust. It contains gardens in ancient Egyptian, Himalayan and Chinese styles.

The strange atmosphere of Biddulph Grange finds an echo in Robert Bateman's depiction of the mandrakes. The mandrake is associated with many legends. Mandrake was said to grow beneath gallows, in a spot where the urine or sperm of a hanged man has fallen to the ground. When uprooted, it utters a shriek so powerful that it can kill people standing too near. There are male and female mandrakes, and infertile women can become fertile by consuming a male-shaped mandrake. A chapter of Sir Thomas's Browne's Pseudodoxia epidemica, 1646, was devoted to these folk-stories (book II, chapter VI).

Bateman's painting shows witches standing at a distance to pull up a mandrake growing near the foot of the gallows. It illustrates Walter Cranes's characterization of the Dudley Gallery school as "a magic world of romance and pictured poetry ... a twilight world of dark mysterious woodlands ... veiled in a dim and mystic light". Crane described Bateman's work as "weird and powerful" (weird meaning supernatural).

The transition from Medicine and War to Inner Vision at Tate Britain reprises an earlier exhibition in which Bateman's gouache was exhibited: the 1913 exhibition of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Library at Wigmore Street, London, initially for visitors to the International Medical Congress (June-October 1913) and subsequently to the public. This exhibition, whose centenary will arrive in two years' time, was the occasion on which the private collection started by Henry S. Wellcome in 1880 became a permanent institution opened to outsiders, and was the precursor to today's operations of the Wellcome Library. At Wigmore Street in 1913 the cautious visitor had to step through a gallery lined with watercolours not of war but of epidemic diseases: deadly mosquitoes depicted by Amedeo Terzi lined one wall, engravings of bubonic plague the neighbouring wall -- all still in the Wellcome Library today. If visitors traversed the length of this gallery and had the courage to carry on, they would have had to step between two African witch doctors and go through a door above which were what the catalogue describes as a "trophy of animal and human weapons of offence and defence": the skin of a tiger on one side and a leopard on the other, the horns of a buffalo or similar, the skull of a big cat, the sword of a swordfish, and other edifying naturalia. (Click on image above to see the details.)

Once past those, they were in a narrow gallery with an unusual collection of watercolours. The first painting in the bottom row will be recognized as Bateman's gouache of witches plucking mandrakes. The two paintings above it are apparently no longer in the Wellcome Library. The painting showing a man with his broken leg in a splint is described in the handbook [1] as "Kind enquiries by J. Hayllar": there was a family of painters called Hayllar based in Bloomsbury, of which James Hayllar (1829–1920) or his daughter Jessica Ellen Hayllar (1858–1940) may be the author of this painting. Where is it now? It fits Jessica's description of her father's work as "subjects to bring the poor and well-to-do together, kindly acts and interest shown in various ways" (Oxford dictionary of national biography). It would be ironic if it were a work of Jessica's, as from about 1900 she was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a traffic accident.

The painting above the Hayllar was catalogued as "The arrest of the alchemist [by] Pierre Deville, 1907", which has not been identified, nor has the painting in the tabernacle frame on the lower left, catalogued as "The magician by Professor Delbake" (possibly Charles Alexandre Debacq, 1804-1853). The painting above that one is catalogued as "The convalescent" without an attribution: it is however still in the Library, and is another fine exhibition-watercolour, signed by the Victorian artist R.H. Giles (right: Wellcome Library no. 18206i). Giles lived in Gravesend in Kent, and exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere for the fifty years 1826 to 1876. Thanks to the darkness of this corridor, it still preserves unfaded its original lustrous colours.

In the quiet of this narrow space, the visitor to the Wigmore Street gallery in 1913 could obtain a temporary respite from the more didactic or overbearing exhibits. There will be fewer quiet episodes in 2011 at Tate Britain, with its larger galleries and immense flow of visitors, but the splendid variety of paintings is more than enough compensation. To mention just two examples, Richard Dadd's bizarre watercolour entitled by him "The child's problem", is rarely on display, while among the earlier exhibits, Lucas Horenbout's portrait of King Henry VIII, on loan from the Louvre, provides a temporary remedy for the usual absence outside Great Britain of both this portrait and Holbein's portrait of the king (the latter being in the Thyssen collection in Madrid).

[1] Handbook of the Historical Medical Museum organised by Henry S. Wellcome, London 1913, p. 15

The Wonders of Watercolour: Sir Charles Bell painting on loan at Tate Britain

Watercolour. What is it good for? Absolutely everything! Or so it seems. The versatility of this medium is explored in the all-embracing Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain until 21 August 2011.

Eight differently themed rooms demonstrate, for example, how watercolour has been used for precise depiction of the natural world, evocative scenes of travel and distant landscapes, and eccentric, charming or disturbing versions of ‘Inner Vision’. A room devoted to ‘Watercolour and War’ includes works ranging from the grotesque carnivalistic scenes of Edward Burra (1905-1976) to graphic depictions of horrific war wounds. In this latter category hangs one of the Battle of Waterloo casualties painted by Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842).

This particular image, selected from an extensive series of Bell watercolours (RAMC/95) held by the Wellcome Library on behalf of the Army Medical Services Museum, shows a soldier suffering the effects of a sabre wound to the stomach, Peltier, Belgian Hospital, 2 July 1815. Lying on his back, shirt pulled up to show what looks like parts of his innards, the soldier’s muted agony and despairing fear is also captured.

Bell’s talent for conveying emotion can be more closely examined in his works on the anatomy and physiology of expression, copies of which are held by the Wellcome Library, including Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806) and Essays on the Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1824).

His prolific illustrations of the human body, the human hand, the brain, the arteries and surgical procedures of course also form part of the holdings of the Wellcome Library’s Rare Books Collection and the Paintings, Prints and Drawings Collection.

Exhibition-goers and students of the illustration of war wounds may also be interested in the images hanging next to the Bell watercolour at Tate Britain: First World War facial injuries and reconstructions, which have been loaned to the Tate by the Gillies Archive, Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, Kent.

This is the second loan from the Bell waterclours at the moment (we described the other back in a post late last year). Catalogue descriptions of the entire series of Battle of Waterloo watercolours by Charles Bell held in the RAMC archive can be found by searching the Archives and Manuscripts online catalogue, entering RAMC/95 in the 'Reference' search box. Researchers should note that due to the fragile condition of the original watercolour paintings photographic reproductions only are normally provided for consultation in the Rare Materials Room. However, bonafide research requests to view the originals will be considered.

Images:

- Sabre wound to abdomen, Peltier, Belgian Hospital, 2 July 1815. From Sir Charles Bell's watercolours of wounds sustained by soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 (RAMC/95)

- A terrified man holding up his hands. From Charles Bell, 'Essays on the Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression' (1824)

Author: Amanda Engineer

Richard Dadd in France – and in New York

"Sketch of the murder of Henry the Sixth in the Tower by Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard the Third ... by Richard Dadd, Bethlem Hospital, 1853." Wellcome Library no. 570213i

On 28 August 1843 the painter Richard Dadd, who had previously shown signs of insanity, stabbed his father to death in Cobham Park in Kent, believing him to be the devil in disguise. He then escaped to France, where his attempted murder of a fellow traveller in a carriage led to his arrest, imprisonment in a series of French asylums, extradition back to England, trial, and admission to a secure ward in a lunatic asylum for life. After twenty years in Bethlem (1844-1864) he was moved to Broadmoor secure hospital where he died in 1886. As an artist he is best known for two extraordinary paintings: The fairy-feller's master-stroke, in Tate Britain (presented by Siegfried Sassoon in 1963; not always on display) and Contradiction: Oberon and Titania, which currently belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber. [1]

Dadd's flight to France after the murder was natural enough, for he had only recently arrived back in England from France after a foreign trip to Turkey, Syria, the Holy Land and Egypt in the retinue of Sir Thomas Phillips (1801-1867: not the manuscripts-collector Sir Thomas Phillipps, as erroneously stated in the original version of this posting, but a former mayor of Newport in Wales). Dadd's episodes of madness in France will have left some evidence there, but none has hitherto been cited. Now references to him in medical literature have been traced by Hélène Klemenz who has published a note on them in the current issue of the The Burlington magazine. [2].

After being shunted through five other asylums, Dadd was admitted to the psychiatric hospital at Clermont de l'Oise, about 35 miles north of Paris, where he was a patient for ten months of the physician Eugène-Joseph Woillez (1811-1882). Woillez discussed Dadd in a monograph that he published in 1849 "on the improvement of the lot of the insane person considered as a social individual". [3] Historians may be forgiven for overlooking this work: the union catalogue OCLC records no copy of it in the UK or USA and only three copies in France (Paris 2-Bordeaux 1). Fortunately a digital copy of the printed text is available on the Gallica website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Woillez's earlier publications were on antiquarian subjects: the British Library has under his name a work on "Archéologie des monumens religieux de l’ancien Beauvoisis, pendant la métamorphose Romane", Paris 1839-1849 and an article on the iconography of lilies in mediaeval heraldry (the fleur de lis figures on the Clermont coat of arms). [4] His later published works are mostly on respiratory medicine. In the middle comes the rare monograph on the improvement of the life of the insane dating from his time as director of the asylum at Clermont, when he, like Philippe Pinel in Paris, had occasion to ponder on how the lives of asylum inmates could be improved.

A rough translation of the passage about Richard Dadd follows:

"The newspapers of 1845 reported the parricide committed in England by a distinguished painter named Dadd, who fled knowingly after the perpetration of that act in order to escape the punishment of the law, and who was nothing but a poor lunatic. He was arrested in France when he tried to cut the throat of a traveller who was unknown to him and who happened to be next to him in a carriage. Dadd's mental disorder was then obvious: he was directed to the Clermont asylum where I had him under my eyes over ten months.

"This young man was a monomaniac exalted by hallucinations and illusions of the most dangerous type. All those who surrounded him were black devils who had to be put to death. His unfortunate father, like the traveller in the carriage, was also a devil whom he had to kill, as he told me several times. I myself was Jesus Christ to him, not that he respected me any the more for it.

"His illusions took on an extraordinary degree of activity when he had spent several hours in a sort of ecstasy, staring directly at the sun, which happened to him frequently. The act of parricide in this case was not at all one of those spontaneous, instinctive and irresistible bouts of monomania which one is compelled to admit in certain cases, but the consequence of reason perverted by the most manifest type of raving imagination, depriving Dadd of all moral freedom."

For the context in which this description occurs, see the book. Among other subjects, Woillez also discusses the possible prevention of aggressive behaviour by the insane, and what right the state has to prevent it by pre-emptive incarceration before any criminal act has been committed—a question still being wrestled with today. Klemenz states that Woillez's case notes on Dadd are in the archives of the Hospital of Clermont de l'Oise, and refers to some of them: specifically, that Dadd was staring at the sun because he regarded it as an incarnation of Osiris, a deity he had become involved with while attending Phillipps in Egypt. He still believed that he was subject to the arbitrary whim of Osiris thirty years later in Broadmoor.

The watercolour by Dadd reproduced above shows Richard Duke of Gloucester, subsequently King Richard III, after killing Henry VI in the Tower of London in May 1471. It is one in a series of watercolours of the passions, this one being Hatred. The duke gloats over the red gouttes of Lancastrian blood that dribble down his sword and splash on to the ground. Another version of the same subject (in Bethlem Hospital) is called by Allderidge "one of Dadd's most frightening pictures". If it is just a strange coincidence that a man called Dadd should have killed his father, what must have been going through that man's mind when, being called Richard and having committed murder by stabbing with a knife, he painted another man also called Richard holding a sword dripping with blood?

Another fine watercolour by Dadd in the same series was bought in 2007 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and is reproduced here from the museum's online catalogue. The watercolour was discovered by Andrew Sim of Sim Fine Art in a provincial auction in the UK: although recorded, it had been lost after it was auctioned at Christie's in 1870, and no illustration of it existed. Annotated by Dadd "Sketch to illustrate the passions. Senility or peevishness", it shows a suspicious old man selling something from a barrow to two ruffians outside an inn, watched by the inn-keeper holding a pipe. Now New Yorkers do not need to travel to London to enjoy a frisson at Richard Dadd's menacing sense of humour.

[1] Patricia Allderidge, The late Richard Dadd, London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1974
[2] Hélène Klemenz, 'Richard Dadd and his demons in France', The Burlington magazine, 2010, 152: 227
[3] Eugène-Joseph Woillez, De l'amélioration du sort de l'homme aliéné considéré comme une individualité sociale, Paris: V. Masson, 1849, pp. 48-50
[4] Eugène-Joseph Woillez, 'Iconographie des plantes aroides figureées au moyen age en Picardie, et considerées comme origine de la fleur de lis en France', Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, 1848.