This delicate landscape, painted on an intensely miniature scale, was made in 1859, sixteen years after Dadd’s incarceration in Bethlehem Hospital following his murd🔯er of his own 𒀰father and his complete mental breakdown.

His descent into insanity was even more tragic as, since his enrollment in the Royal Academy schools in 1837, he had been building uꦉp a reputation as one of the major talents of his generation. He was to spend the rest of his life in institut🅷ions where only painting provided any kind of relief. 

Entitled 'a dream of fancy', the work forms part of a group of drawings that recall his travels in 1842-1🍎843 through Switzerland, north Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Painted in a fine stippled technique, the✱ work takes on a visionary quality.

The present work has descended in the family of Ron♔ald John Rickett, known as John,♛ who was a director of British Pictures at Sotheby’s in the 1960s.