The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke by Richard Dadd

CERTIFIED TATE SPECIAL MUSEUM EDITION

The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke is one of several paintings Arius digitized in collaboration with Tate Britain. The resulting Art Digital Master File (ADMF™) is essentially a digital fingerprint of a painting's surface. The ADMF is archived for future analytics and was utilized to create ultra-high-resolution textured art prints that ensures the authenticity of the artist's process.

THE STORY BEHIND DADD'S PAINTING

This work, although unfinished, is generally considered to be Dadd’s masterpiece, having worked on it for six to nine years. It was painted for H.G. Haydon, an official at Bethlem Hospital, where Dadd was sent after he became insane and murdered his father in 1843.

He was transferred to Broadmoor in July 1864, before being able to complete the painting. The picture is executed on a minute scale and in exquisite detail, his technique was to make a detailed sketch of the composition and then paint each object and area in its entirety before proceeding to the next. He used fairly thick paint, applied in tiny blobs that give a cobbled appearance to some of the surface. The strange disruptions of scale and lack of perspective enhance the fantastic feel of the picture, and the onlooker is further distanced from the scene by a screen of tendrils and grasses.