Chatterton

Henry Wallis

Date: c. 1855-1856 

Materials: Oil on wood panel 

First study 

Whether this is a study for the large oil on canvas now in the Tate Gallery, or a later replica, it is very difficult to tell. Minor differences between this and the larger work (and an additional replica) suggest that this is indeed the first design. Although commonly known as 'The Death of Chatterton', the large oil was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856 under the simple title 'Chatterton'.  

Tragic poet

A mid-nineteenth century audience would have been familiar with the story of Thomas Chatterton's tragically short life and sad death. Born in Bristol in 1752, he was a precociously gifted poet who at first sought attention by producing what he claimed were lost medieval ballads, but which he himself had written.  

Coming to London in 1770, he met with little encouragement or success as a writer; embittered by the greater interest in his fakes than in his original verse, he committed suicide by swallowing arsenic.

Poet used as model 

The poet George Meredith sat as model for the head of Chatterton, Wallis using his long chestnut-coloured hair but not the beard he is known to have had.

Subsequently, Wallis formed a liaison with Meredith's strong-willed wife Mary Ellen, daughter of the novelist Thomas Love Peacock, who bore him a son in 1858.