ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke n August 28, 1843, Richard Dadd (1817-1886), March 21, 1854, reporting that early in his admission Dadd one of the most promising young artists of his gen- was impulsively violent and “would jump up and strike a blow eration, lured his father, Robert Dadd, into a park without any aggravation and then beg pardon for the O 4(p125) in Cobham, Kent, England. Believing that he was attacking deed.” Spirits who “have the power of possessing a man’s the devil disguised as “the person he had always regarded body and compelling him to adopt a particular course”4(p125) as a parent”,1(p24) he attempted to cut his father’s throat with seemed to control him. When speaking of his crime, Dadd be- a razor and, failing that, stabbed him to death. He escaped came agitated and unintelligible. Hood describes him as to France, where he was arrested near Montereau (south- eccentric, paying “no attention to decency in his acts or east of Paris) after attempting to cut the throat of a fellow words,”4(p125) yet despite these attitudes “he can be a very sen- carriage passenger; he had made his decision to attack based sible and agreeable companion, and show in conversation, a on his perceptions of movements of the star Osiris (prob- mind once well educated.”4(p125) Subsequent notes during the ably Sirius).2(p60) After being taken into custody, he con- next several years reported no change. In 1860, Hood men- fessed his crime and was eventually admitted to the Cler- tioned his general civility with others but added, “[H]is mind mont Asylum, near Beauvais. A list of those who must die was is full of delusions.”4(p126) In 1877, when interviewed by a Lon- recovered from him. In London, England, sketches of his don newspaper, The World, Dadd’s beliefs were unchanged; friends with a red line drawn across their throats, suggesting the reporter wrote that when mandated by Osiris “to arise and that they would be cut, were found in his apartment. slay all that he meets in his path,”2(pp71,72) Dadd said that “so- His illness had emerged during the previous year. Be- ciety interferes, and summons the aid of the law to hinder a cause of his exceptional skill at drawing, Dadd was commis- devout believer”2(p72) from showing his obedience. sioned to accompany the Welsh lawyer Sir Thomas Phillips Although retrospective diagnosis is best avoided, the con- on a 10-month tour of Europe and the Near and Middle East, sensus from published reports1,5 is paranoid schizophrenia. departing in July 1842. In December, shortly before reach- Bipolar disorder has been proposed,6 but hospital records and ing Egypt, a country Dadd found fascinating, he had written observations during the 42 years of his confinement do not to a friend that he had often “lain down at night with my imagi- support it. His emotional outbursts in all settings were short nation so full of wild vagaries that I have really and truly lived, linked to delusions, and did not represent a persistent doubted my own sanity.”1(p21) Leaving Egypt, from Alexan- affective state. Patricia Allderidge, former curator of the Beth- dria en route to Malta, he was convinced that Phillips was lem Hospital Museum (written comunication, March 30, 2004) the devil in disguise and was playing a card game for the cap- indicates that 1 brother and 1 sister (not 2 brothers as pre- tain’s soul.3 In Rome he was argumentative with Phillips and viously reported5(p67)) were diagnosed as having delusional experienced persecutory delusions. He had strong urges to disorders and institutionalized; there is no history of psychi- kill the Pope, desisting only when he realized how closely the atric disorder in members of the extended family. The ques- Pope was guarded. Refusing Phillips’ advice that he seek medi- tion of Dadd’s diagnosis will be discussed in detail in a forth- cal help in Paris, he returned alone to England, where his fa- coming biography of Richard Dadd by Allderidge. ther consulted a prominent psychiatrist at St Luke’s Hospi- Dadd was encouraged to paint throughout his hospital tal (London), Alexander Sutherland, about his condition. stay and, possibly with the encouragement of Hood, began a Sutherland recommended quiet and care; Dadd initially im- series of paintings in 1852 to illustrate the passions. In the proved but then relapsed. Shortly before the murder, Suther- ensuing 4 years, he completed more than 30 paintings in- land found Dadd to be insane, dangerous, and not respon- cluding such representations as Hatred, Love, Murder, Treach- sible for his behavior and advised that he be put under ery, Pride, Agony, Grief, and Melancholy. It was after immers- restraints. Tragically, his father decided to care for him him- ing himself in these themes that at the request of George self, and within a week of the consultation he was dead. Haydon, the steward at Bethlem Hospital, he began The Fairy When extradited to Rochester, England, for a court hear- Feller’s Master-Stroke. Haydon, an amateur artist himself, was ing in July 1844, Dadd freely admitted to the murder. Clearly aware that Dadd had previously achieved fame for his fairy insane, he was not brought to trial, so the McNaughton rules paintings, especially Titania Sleeping and its companion piece, promulgated in 1843 were not applied. Instead, he was di- Puck, from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. rectly admitted to the criminal lunatic department of Beth- Dadd began The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke sometime lem Hospital in St George’s Field, Southwark, London, on Au- during the 3-year period between 1855 and 1858 and con- gust 22. His younger brother, George William, had been tinued until July 1864, when he was transferred to the new admitted to the same hospital with delusions the previous year. Broadmoor facility for the criminally insane in Berkshire, En- Dadd revealed that he was influenced by Osiris, the Egyptian gland. On his arrival, he immediately painted a replica in wa- god of the underworld and vegetation, and had received se- tercolor but renamed it Songe de la Fantasie, apparently ac- cret communications from him. He believed that he was being knowledging it to be a fantastic daydream. Moreover, he persecuted by the devil, that others were as well, and that his composed a rambling, sometimes incomprehensible 22- mission was to exterminate those under the devil’s influence. page poem, Elimination of a Picture and Its Subject—Called The Sir Charles Hood, the first resident superintendent of Feller’s Master Stroke, as an aid to understanding and dem- Bethlem Hospital, summarized Dadd’s progress in a note dated onstrating that everything in the painting is intentional. Seek- (REPRINTED) ARCH GEN PSYCHIATRY/ VOL 61, JUNE 2004 WWW.ARCHGENPSYCHIATRY.COM 541 ©2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 09/30/2021 Description of Painting Based on Dadd’s Poem The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke is viewed through a delicate network of grasses and flowers. It is “night’s noon time haply extra bright”4(p122) with gray light illuminating the painting. The figures are shown as if they were in a trance. The pivotal figure is the Fairy Feller (woodsman who fells trees) clothed in leather, standing with a raised double-edged ax awaiting the arch magician, a white-bearded Patriarch (in the center), to give the signal for him to split a large hazelnut that might be used to construct Queen Mab’s new fairy carriage. A spellbound assembly of fairies, gnomes, and elves, joined by some disinterested spectators, watch to see if he will split the nut with 1 stroke. The Patriarch wears a huge hat with a papal-like 3-tiered crown “of subtle might”1(p125) with his left arm resting on a club to strike fairies. Its enormous brim twists off into tendrils and flowers to join the surrounding vegetation. Along the right brim sits Queen Mab in her carriage drawn by female centaurs with a gnat as coachman and Cupid and Psyche as her pages; Spanish dancers appear on the left brim of the hat. In the lower circle, counterclockwise from the Fairy Feller, are the hostler (stable boy), watching intently; a dwarf monk; a good-natured plowman; “Waggoner Will”; 2 men about town; a clodhopper with a satyr’s head; a politician; a fairy dandy making a pass at a nymph; 2 eavesdropping elves; a crouching, squinting pedagogue watching to see what happens; 2 ladies’ maids with bulging breasts and calves and tiny feet; a leering satyr just below the peda- gogue’s right arm, peering up the skirt of the maid holding the mirror; a tanner with a dairy maid; dwarf conjurers, one of whom is taking odds on whether the nut will be split; and to his right, a weaver spider. In the upper half of the painting, Titania and Oberon stand directly above the Patriarch’s hat, watched by an old lady. At the top left are a tatterdemalion (person in tattered clothing) and junketer (person who goes on junkets, feasts, and excursions for pleasure) playing trumpets accompanied by a dragonfly trumpeter. At the top right are figures from the children’s fortune-telling rhyme Tinker Tailor, which children sing while counting cherry stones, buttons, or daisy petals (found throughout the painting) to prophesy their adult vocation: Will it be soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, plow-boy/gentleman(?), apothecary, or thief (shown from the viewer’s left to right)? (Dadd uses “plow-boy” in the poem, but the figure in front of the apothecary appears to be a gentleman.) The Apoth- ecary stands at the top far right with mortar and pestle in hand; he is thought to resemble Richard Dadd’s murdered father, Robert Dadd.