Enchantment and patricide: 'Titania Sleeping' by Richard Dadd (1817-1886)

Richard Dadd's Titania Sleeping is one of the artist's major works. The pai nting, exhibited in 1841 at the Royal Academy, was the crowning achievement of the young Dadd's official career. The Shakespearean theme, taken from A Midsummer Night's Dream, was evidently extremely important for Dadd as his most ambitious compositions all deal with the loves of Oberon and Titania and fairy scenes. Richard Dadd was a talented artist who unfortunately met with a tragic fate. On his return to England after long, exhausting travels in the Middle East, Dadd murdered his father in a fit of madness. He was i nterned for the rest of his life in Bedlam and Broadmoor asylums where he c ontinued to paint, encouraged by his doctors. The works painted during his interment up until his death all involved the same enchanted universe as th at depicted in the Titania Sleeping in the Louvre, but featured an even mor e pronounced other worldliness.