Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource : The Collection

This is a painting about emigration, the couple are departing for Australia. The subject itself - departure in desperate circumstances for a foreign land - has parallels with the biblical story of the Flight into Egypt. The artist himself posed for the painting, along with his partner Emma, and their children Cathy, the fair-haired girl in the background, and Oliver, the baby.

Purchased, 1891.
© Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Makers

Association	Artist	Organisation
Artist	Ford Madox Brown	-

Inscriptions

Type	Position(s)	Method	Date(s)
F Madox Brown, 1855
Signature and date	-	Painted	1855

An. Dom. 1852 The Last of England
Title	frame	Embossed	1855

Exhibitions

Catalogue No.	Venue	Date(s)
32nd Exhibition
-	Liverpool Academy of Arts	1856 - 1856

International Exhibition
110	Paris	1862 - 1862

Work, and other Paintings by Ford Madox Brown
14	191 Picadilly, London	1865 - 1865

-
1331	Leeds City Art Gallery	1868 - 1868

Art Treasures Exhibition
225	Bradford City Museum and Art Gallery	1870 - 1870

-
152	Oldham	1883 - 1883

-
144	Guildhall Art Gallery	1897 - 1897

Loan Exhibition of Works by Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelites
64	City of Manchester Art Gallery	1911-09-14 - 1911-11-30

Loan Collection of Works by English Pre-Raphaelite Painters lent by the Art Gallery Committee of the Birmingham Corporation
18	Nationall Gallery British Art (now Tate Gallery, London)	1911-12 - 1912-03

British Empire Exhibition
W6	Wembley	1925 - 1925

Exhubition of Retrospective British Art
13	Musée Moderne, Brussels	1929 - 1929

Exhibition of British Art c. 1000-1860
557	Royal Academy of Arts, London	1934 - 1934

200 Years of English Art
10	Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam	1936 - 1936

English Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries
9	Louvre, Paris	1939 - 1939

Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces
2	City of Manchester Art Gallery	1948-06-14 - 1948-08-08

The Pre-Raphaelites
4	Whitechapel Art Gallery, London	1948-04-08 - 1948-05-12

Ford Madox Brown 1821-1893
29	Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool	1964 - 1964

The Pre-Raphaelites
62	Tate Gallery, London	1984-03-07 - 1984-05-28

Exiles & Emigrants: Epic Journeys to Australia in the Victorian Era
-	National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne	2005-12-09 - 2006-06-04

Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite
32	Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery	2008-08-27 - 2008-12-14

Literature

Author(s)	Date(s)	Publisher	Pages
Work, and other Paintings by Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown	1865	Privately published by the artist	pp. 8-9

Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Works
F M Hueffer	1896	Longmans, Green and Co.	pp. 94-101, 438; repr. opp. p. 100

The Artist
	April, 1899	-	repr. p.186

Magazine of Fine Arts
	April, 1906	-	p. 411

Loan Exhibition of Works by Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelites
	1911	City of Manchester Art Gallery	p. 14

Loan Collection of Works by English Pre-Raphaelite Painters Lent by the Art Gallery Committee of the Birmingham Corporation
	1911	Nationall Gallery British Art, London	pp. 6-7; repr. facing p. 6

Burlington Magazine
	July, 1917	-	p. 2

British Painting
C H Collins Baker	1933	The Medici Society, London	p.204, repr. pl.129

European Painting and Sculpture
Newton	1941	Allen Lane, Harmondsworth, England and Penguin, New York	repr. Fig.26

Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces
	1948	City of Manchester Art Gallery	pp. 7-8

The Pre-Raphaelites
	1948	Whitechapel Art Gallery, London	p. 13

Pre-Raphaelite Painters
C Ironside, Charles March Gere	1948	Phaidon, London	p.24; repr. pl.15

A Century of British Painting 1851-1951
A Bertram	1951	Studio Publications, London and New York	p.34; repr. pl.13

A Hundred Years of British Painting
H Hubbard	1951	Longman, Green, London and New York	repr., pl.11

Painters of the Victorian Scene
Graham Reynolds	1953	Batsford, London	p. 18

Ford Madox Brown 1821-1893
Mary Bennett	1964	Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool	pp. 21-22; repr. pl. 3

Preraffaelliti
Maria Teresa Benedetti	1967	Giunti Barbèra, Florence	repr. pl.18

Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelite History-Picture
Lucy Rabin	1978	Garland Publishing, New York	p. 139 ff.; repr. pl. 57

The Evolution of a Masterpiece: A Reconstruction of Ford Madox Brown's painting Procedure for 'The Last England'
Alec Cobbe	1979	-	1-23

Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art
	1987	Farleigh Dickinson University Press, Ruhterford, New Jersey and Associate University Presses, London	pp.66-67; repr. Fig.45

Die Praraffaeliten
Peter Betthausen	1989	Henschelverag Kunst ung Gesellschaft, Berlin	p. 13; repr. p.14

Art Bulletin of Victoria, no. 32
Pamela Gerrish Nunn	1991	National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne	p. 10-12; repr. p.11

Problem Pictures: Women and Men in Victorian Painting
Pamela Gerrish Nunn	1995	Sclar Press, Aldershot	p. 127, 136-137; repr. pl. 6.3

Important British Art
	1999-06-10	Christies, London	p. 58; repr. Fig. 1

Art of the Pre-Raphelites
Elizabeth Prettejohn	2000	Tate Publishing, London	pp.150-151, repr. Fig. 62, detail Fig. 120

Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain
	2005	Yale University Press	pp. 32-34, 39 & p. 79; repr. p. 33

Exiles & Emigrants: Epic Journeys to Australia in the Victorian Era
	2005	National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne	p. 27; repr. p. 27

Gallery
Patricia Tryon Macdonald	2005-11	National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne	pp.26-28; repr. p. 26

Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite
Laura MacCulloch, Tessa Sidey	2008	D. Giles Limited, London	p. 56; repr. p. 18

Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite
Angela Thirlwell	2008	D. Giles Limited, London	pp. 9, 12

Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite
Tim Barringer	2008	D. Giles Limited, London	pp. 16, 28-29

Provenance

Sold to David Thomas White the day after its completion in 1855 for £150 (with 1906P795 a pencil cartoon for the work); bought by Windus; by 5 December 1855 it belonged to B. G. Windus; sold by Windus Christie's 16 March 1859, lot 45; bought Gambart £341.5s; sold at Plint Sale 7 March 1862, lot 329; bought Pilgrim for £413.10s; bought John Crossley 1865; C.J. Pooley; Purchased for the museum in 1891.