Record at auction
NZPA-Reuter London Richard Dadd, who murdered his father and died in a madhouse in 1864. was put into the front rank of Victorian artists when one of his paintings was sold for $1,258,180.
An unidentified telephone bidder bought “Contradiction Oberon and Titania” at Sotheby’s. Experts said that the price was more than double the record for a Victorian painting. An intricate vision inspired by Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it shows the King and Queen of the Fairies quarrelling over a page boy. The same work, an oval 75cm across, changed hands in 1964 for $15,960.
Dadd finished the painting in 1858 after four years work in Bedlam, a lunatic asylum in London, where he was sent in 1843 for the murder of his father.
Permanent link to this item
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Bibliographic details
Press, 18 March 1983, Page 7
Word Count
128Record at auction Press, 18 March 1983, Page 7
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