Down Stream - Tailpiece to the Poem (This Year's first of May) - Published
By Ford Madox Brown, C M Jenkin
1870 – 1871
Accession number: 1912P45
Wood engraving on paper.
Width: 140 mm
Height: 225 mm
Information
Ford Madox Brown made two illustrations for 'Downstream' a poem by Rossetti published in 1871 in the short-lived magazine 'The Dark Blue.' The poem tells the tale of a woman seduced and left pregnant by a man on the first of May. By the first of June the next year she has drowned herself and her baby in desperation. This is the more sedate tailpiece which depicts the poem's tragic ending. Although it lacks the vitality of the main illustration, Rossetti was pleased with it and told Brown, 'the little one is pretty too' (F. M. Hueffer, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Works, p. 264).LM
- Presented by Fairfax Murray, 1912.
- © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Makers
| Association | Artist | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Artist | Ford Madox Brown | - |
| Publisher | - | British and Colonial Publishing Company |
| Engraver | C M Jenkin | - |
Inscriptions
| Type | Position(s) | Method | Date(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FMB | ||||
| Monogram | bottom left | Engraved | 1871 | |
Exhibitions
| Catalogue No. | Venue | Date(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite | |||
| 48 | Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery | 2008-08-27 - 2008-12-14 | |
Literature
| Author(s) | Date(s) | Publisher | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Dark Blue | |||
| October 1871, vol. ii | British and Colonial Publishing Company, Limited | pp. 211-212 | |
| Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family Letters | |||
| William Michael Rossetti | 1895 | Ellis & Elvey, London | vol. 2, p. 246 |
| Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Works | |||
| F M Hueffer | 1896 | Longmans, Green and Co., London | pp. 263-264 |
| English Illustration: 'The Sixties 1855-70' | |||
| Gleeson White | 1897 | Archibald Constable and Co., London | p. 81 |
| The Victorian Woodblock Illustrators | |||
| Eric de Maré | 1980 | Gordon Fraser, London | p. 113 |
| Pocket Cathedrals: Pre-Raphaelite Book Illustration | |||
| Susan P Casteras | 1991 | Yale Center for British Art, New Haven | pp. 15, 104 |
| Victorian Illustration: the Pre-Raphaelites, the Idyllic School and the High Victorians, | |||
| Paul Goldman | 1996 | Scolar Press, Aldershot | pp. 9-10, 274, 370 |
| Resuscitating Ophelia: Images of Suicide and suicidal Insanity in nineteenth-century England | |||
| Lisa Nicolletti | 1999 | Univeristy of Wisconsin, USA | pp. 169-170 |
| The British Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators | |||
| 2005 | Oak Knell Press, Newcastle, USA and the British Library, London, UK | - | |
| Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite | |||
| Laura MacCulloch, Tessa Sidey | 2008 | D. Giles Limited, London | 66 |
| Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite | |||
| 2008 | D. Giles Limited, London | p. 13 | |
Associated people
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Author |
Related work & resources
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