The Fairy Visions of Richard Dadd by Miranda Miller

I’m looking forward to the launch, or rather relaunch, of my novel on June 30th. It was first published by Peter Owen in 2013. When I was writing this novel I was deeply impressed by Dadd’s heroic determination to carry on painting and drawing throughout his long incarceration. The doctors in the Bethlem Hospital, or Bedlam, as it was known to generations of Londoners, recognised Dadd’s talent and even collected his paintings and drawings. Much of his work has probably has been lost or destroyed but it is perhaps more surprising that we have as much as we do. It is only very recently that the art of the mentally ill has been widely respected. In my novel Dr Hood, the Resident Physician in the hospital, discusses his work with his friend Haydon, the Steward:

  

“ ‘ Do you think he is a great artist?’

  ‘You are a better judge of art than I. But I believe his work is spoiled by an excess of fantasy. Art must improve us and only an artist who is decent and self-controlled and reasonable can produce truly great work - Charles Eastlake, for example, who gives us such charming and educational scenes and also played a practical role as Keeper of the National Gallery. Yet there is interest in Dadd’s work, Morison has just sent me five pounds for some drawings. I had to return the money, for his work must stay inside our hospital.’“

  

   In my novel, Richard Dadd himself doubts the worth of his own art:

   

“All my life I have been trying to reach those heights, to make just one painting that will be worth looking at after I die. Of course I have failed, my whole life has been a catastrophe, I have betrayed that original vision and often fear that the doctors here only humour me when they praise my work. How could great or even good art come out of Bedlam?”

       

In 1877, after Dadd had been transferred to Broadmoor, a journalist described him as “A recluse doing the honour of his modest unpretending abode; a pleasant visaged old man with a long and flowing snow white beard, with mild blue eyes that beam benignly  through spectacles when in conversation.”

                                                   The Child’s problem. Richard Dadd (1857)

   

Dadd gave this strange and sinister drawing to his Head Keeper, Charles Neville, whose great grandson gave it to the Tate in 1955.

Robbie Ross, Oscar Wilde’s friend and literary executor, was an early admirer of Dadd’s work. 

The flight out of Egypt Richard Dadd (1849-50)

Sacheverell Sitwell found The Flight Out of Egypt in the picture frame department of the Army and Navy stores and bought it. It was then bought by Tate Britain in 1947.

Siegfried Sassoon became friendly with three of Dadd’s great nephews, Stephen, Edmund and Julian, during the First World War. Two of the brothers were killed in the war but the third brother, Julian, survived the war although, sadly, he later committed suicide. Siegfried Sassoon presented The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke, which is reproduced on the cover of my novel,  to Tate Britain "in memory of his friend and fellow officer Julian Dadd, a grandnephew of the artist, and of his [Julian's] two brothers [Stephen Gabriel and Edmund] who gave their lives in the First World War” It was first exhibited in 1935.

Richard Dadd’s reputation has soared as attitudes to mental illness have changed. As Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian (Wed 17 Jun 2015) : 

“We are transfixed by Dadd’s fantastical paintings not because he had a mental illness, but because they are nothing like the leaden Victorian art of the day.”

This summer there will be an exhibition of Dadd’s work at the Royal Academy:


Richard Dadd

 
Beyond Bedlam

25 July - 25 October 2026

The Jillian and Arthur M. Sackler Wing of Galleries | Burlington House

 

On Thursday July 23 at 7.30 pm I will be giving an illustrated talk about my novel and how I came to write it at The Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PA.

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www.mirandamiller.info

The "Saracen Children" who were actually horses. Elizabeth Chadwick on the detail gremlins that change history.

 

I am working on a novel about Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt.  It's contracted but as yet untitled.  Currently I am editing the work and checking my historical details and it's proving to be very interesting, not least because double checks on some of the historical details in what appear on the surface to be solid academic works, turn out to be problematic when one digs deeper. 

I was reading Anthony Goodman's biography of John of Gaunt while writing my first draft and came across a mention dated to 1351 of clothing being provided for "Sigo and Nakok" who were two "Saracen children" attached to the household of either John of Gaunt or Edward of Woodstock when they were living in the same household.  "Saracen" covers a lot of ground and could refer to Iberian, Middle Eastern or North African children.  Such children were often regarded as exotic parts of the trappings of a late medieval household.  In 1351, John of Gaunt (who was never called that in his lifetime), was eleven years old.

I decided it would be interesting to include these Saracen children in the story and one in particular as a background character in John's household when he was older. 

Recently, during a coffee break, I began digging to see if I could find anything else about them beyond Goodman's quote, and that was when I had to stop and sit back. 

From what I have been able to glean:

Nowhere in primary sources are "Saracen children" mentioned and it would seem to be a modern error.  Checking Goodman's biography of John of Gaunt I was able to look up the two sources he cites as evidence for his statement. 
His first source is The Calendar of the Household of the King.  Yes, it absolutely does mention Sigo and Nakok, but it's on the account for the stables and makes very clear that the two named individuals are horses, not people!  Sigo is a destrier (warhorse) and Nakok a courser (hunting or fast horse).  The amounts of cloth cited are in keeping with the amounts required to trap out a destrier (Sigo gets the larger amount) and a slighter hunter or racer.  Both names appear on the accounts for the stables.

The other source cited by Goodman is Hoccleve, an 1897 version of a fifteenth century poetical text.  It contains no mention whatsoever of "Saracen children" and is a complete red herring and non-source.  It doesn't mention John of Gaunt at all.  Perhaps it's a late night error.

The name Sigo (Sayghu) can be traced to Magrehbi/Andalusian patterns of horse naming and means "Bright One/Fine One/Swift One.  It's not a classic Arabic human personal name. He is given the most cloth for his coverings. Nakok (Naquq) means a sound such as "Chatter", "Tap" or "Click" and could have been a reference to a sound the horse made, or perhaps the sound required to jolly him along. He receives less cloth for his trappings. 

The bottom line is that Sigo and Nakok were NOT children but horses - very likely swanky Iberian ones.  So now I have two horse names I can use in the narrative, but will now use other attendants whose names and roles are congruent with my second-dig research. 

I have said before that digging will give you one story and double-digging may lead in quite different directions.  Like the occasion I discovered that Eleanor of Aquitaine did not have a brother called Joscelin, who was in fact the illegitimate half brother of Adeliza of Louvain, second queen of Henry II, but historians have made assumptions and then copied each other and set the error in stone.
This is the post on my own website blog about that particular discovery. Eleanor of Aquitaine's non-brother

The Bloomsbury Set at Charleston by Judith Allnatt

I recently had the opportunity to visit Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex,  which was home to some members of the Bloomsbury group including Vanessa Bell who was a painter and the sister of Virginia Woolf. 

Both sisters were fragile. In 1911 Vanessa had a mental breakdown following a miscarriage and was nursed by Virginia. Virginia, of course, suffered from depression and was tragically to take  her own life in 1941. 

In this photo of Vanessa, which sits on the mantelpiece in her studio, one can clearly see the family likeness, not only physically but in the pensive expression, both sisters having rather soulful eyes. Virginia and Leonard Woolf had a home nearby, Monks House at Firle. They were playfully referred to as 'the Woolves' by the Charleston household. 

Vanessa settled at Charleston in 1916 with her two sons, her art critic husband Clive Bell, the painter Duncan Grant and the writer David Garnett. (Grant and Garnett were lovers). Vanessa and Clive Bell had an open marriage, reflecting the freedoms espoused by the Bloomsbury group who were searching for new ways of living and loving. Vanessa had previously had an affair in France with Roger Fry (whom Virginia was also in love with) and later had a  relationship at Charleston with Duncan Grant. 

I was interested in the complex relationships playing out within the group and wanted to find out what drew them to Charleston.  They were a fairly affluent set, at home in London or Paris, whereas Charleston was an isolated rundown farmhouse with no hot water, electricity or telephone. After reading around this, two main factors seem to be involved. The group perhaps wanted a secluded place where they could feel free to pursue their unconventional art and lifestyle but also, at the height of the First World War, men were either conscripted or had to find 'Work of National Importance'  such as farming; Grant and Garnett were able to do the latter living at Charleston.

Visiting the house one feels as if its twentieth century inhabitants have just popped outside for a moment. Everywhere there is evidence of their artistic life. Many paintings, mainly portraits, hang in every room,  but also doors, tables, mantlepieces and cupboards are painted with figures or decoration. The studio, where Duncan and Vanessa painted side by side, is still scattered with paintbrushes and oils and, in a parlour, fire bricks have been  built out onto the hearth in a DIY effort to draw heat into what must have been a freezing room in winter. 

Charleston also houses a collection of dinner plates commissioned by Kenneth Clark the art historian. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant were commissioned to decorate them with paintings of famous women. There are four sets of twelve comprising famous Queens, famous beauties, famous writers and famous performers, plus two portraits of the artists themselves. The slant towards the arts is noticeable here -  no mathematicians such as Émilie Du Châtelet or scientists such as Marie Curie. Although the artists were avante garde, perhaps their view of gender was still  influenced to some extent by the assumptions and prejudices of the time.

One also cannot help but question whether the complicated sexual relationships brought freedom equally to both genders. Duncan Grant was the father of Vanessa's third child, Angelica. However, Angelica was not told of this until she was seventeen and had grown up believing that Clive Bell was her father. In her 

memoir 'Deceived by Kindness', she describes the unease she felt as a child, created by an awareness  that the adults were keeping something from her. It also appears that neither man really took on the responsibilities of fathering and that this lack affected her  profoundly. 

On top of this complicated emotional situation, in her twenties Angelica was pursued by David Garnett, (her father Duncan Grant's one time lover).  Angelica, inexperienced and full of doubts was nonetheless persuaded by the older man to marry him, much against the wishes of both Vanessa and Clive Bell.  David Garnett's comment years before on seeing the newborn Angelica was : "I think of marrying it. When she is 20, I shall be 46 - will it be scandalous?" Presumably at the time it was seen as a flippant joke but one wonders whether the whole idea had its roots in jealousy, perhaps over Duncan's relationship with Vanessa or even because of a rejection by Vanessa of Grant's own advances. (Angelica writes that " . .  he had proposed bed to Vanessa and been rejected" and that his purpose in marrying her daughter, "at least in part, was to inflict pain on Vanessa".)

As well as giving a beautifully rendered account of life at Charleston, the memoir shines a strong light on some of the members of the iconic Bloomsbury Set: their personalities, relationships and all-too-human failings. 

 

For those interested in finding out more, "Deceived by Kindness"  by Angelica Garnett is published by Pimlico, Penguin Random House